Kanhaiya Kumar of JNU and the late Rohith Vemula of Hyderabad University, the faces of a controversy and a tragedy far removed from the politics of Assam, have come up in a series of Congress hoardings. Pictures of the two students are part of a collage with the question: “Is this the achche din PM Modi was talking about?” The hoardings came up Tuesday, across Guwahati and some other major towns. “Yes, we want to take up these issues to the people of Assam as they get ready to vote for the state assembly. [related-post] Kanhaiya Kumar’s arrest, Rohith Vemula’s suicide, as also the suicides of so many farmers have repeatedly shocked the country and exposed the real face of the BJP and its Prime Minister Narendra Modi who had cheated the people by promising them achche din,” Assam Pradesh Congress Committee senior spokesperson Mehdi Alam Bora told The Indian Express. Bora said that it was on the basis of these “shameful incidents, particularly of brilliant students like Kanhaiya of JNU and Rohith Vemula of Hyderabad University”, that the people of the country were evaluating the Modi government. “While people generally evaluate Congress governments through their good deeds, it is unfortunate that the BJP government, which had got an unprecedented mandate less than two years ago, is being evaluated on the basis of these incidents that have brought shame to India across the globe,” Bora said. The largest such hoarding, measuring 15m × 40, has been put up along the entire front of a building on G S Road not far from Rajiv Bhavan, the state Congress headquarters. Bora said over 200 such hoardings have been put up across the state. “This particular hoarding will directly appeal to the students and youth who have particularly felt cheated after so enthusiastically voting for Modi,” Bora said. “The entire youth of the country has turned against the BJP because of these two incidents. Never has the country witnessed such incidents, especially the JNU incident in which the right to freedom of expression has been so dangerously sought to be curtailed.” Asked what he thinks of the campaign, Assam BJP president and the party’s chief ministerial candidate Sarbananda Sonowal said the Congress should first ask itself what it had done to the people. “The Congress that is talking about freedom of expression should first tell the people what it did during the Emergency. Has the Congress forgotten about P Rajan, the engineering student from Kozhikode whose body was never found after the police picked him up from the college campus during the Emergency?” Sonowal said. The BJP leader added that the Congress should also ask itself about the number of journalists attacked and killed in Assam in the past 15 years, and the rising crimes against women that include gang-rape, abduction and trafficking. “The Congress should also put up hoardings about rising crimes against women in Assam during its rule. Also names of hundreds of farmers who have committed suicide,” Sonowal said.
