Amit Shah asks if Rahul Gandhi has joined hands with separatist forces

Speaking for the first time on the ongoing JNU row, BJP president Amit Shah on 15 February came down heavily on Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for extending his support to the JNU students - who had organised an event on 9 February to commemorate the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.

In a blogpost, Shah criticised Gandhi for lending support to a "handful of JNU students" who had resorted to anti-India sloganeering.

He highlighted a number of slogans that were heard at the 9 February event:

"Pakistan Zindabad"

"Bharat ki barbadi tak jang rahetgi jaari" (We will fight till India is destroyed)

Afzal hum sharminda hai, tere katil zinda hai (Afzal we are ashamed that your killers are still alive)

Tum kitne Afzal maroge, har ghar se Afzal (How many Afzals will you kill?)

Accusing Gandhi of supporting these slogans, Shah wrote:

"By calling anti-nationalism as right to dissent and investigation against anti-nationalism as crackdown on freedom of speech, he has shown his insensitivity towards integrity of the country".

"I want to ask him if he has joined hands with separatist forces? By supporting such slogans, does he want another partition in this country?"

Amit Shah's blogpost come days after the Congress vice-president visited the JNU campus to express solidarity with the protesting students. Gandhi visited the varsity a day after the arrest of JNU Students' Union president Kanhaiya Kumar in a sedition case. He lambasted the NDA government and compared those "suppressing the student's voices" to Adolf Hitler. Gandhi said:

"We do not have problem if RSS and BJP want to express their opinion. We just want to tell them if they will listen to us, they will be convinced by us... they are simply crushing voices".

Workers of the Akhil Bharati Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) waved black flags at the campus during the Congress vice-president's visit. In response, Gandhi said:

"People who showed black flags on my face, I feel proud that in my country they have the right to show black flags."

Later Congress leader Anand Sharma, who had accompanied Gandhi, accused the ABVP of attacking him.

Here's the full text of his blog:

The Congress party is deeply disappointed at the achievements made by the Narendra Modi-led government at the centre. The party and its leaders are not able to comprehend how to play a role of a responsible government in this state of depression.

In this state of mind, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi finds himself being unable to differentiate between what is pro-national and what is anti-national. Whatever happened in Jawaharlal Nehru University cannot be accepted in the garb of national interest.

No citizen of the country can accept the anti-national slogans that advocate terrorists at a prestigious university like the JNU. However, the statements passed by the Congress Vice-president and other congress leaders during their university visits have proven that there is no place for the national spirit in their chain of thoughts.

Driven by a handful of left-wing students at JNU, the following anti-national slogans were raised:

"Hail Pakistan"

"Go India Go Back"

"The war shall continue till India reaches its point of destruction"

"The war shall continue till Kashmir gets its freedom"

"Afzal we are ashamed that your murderers are still alive"

"How many Afzal's will you kill? Every house shall have one Afzal"

"Afzal your blood will bring revolution"

What kind of democracy is Rahul Gandhi trying to advocate by justifying these students? Is this the definition of patriotism for Rahul Gandhi? He has expressed extreme insensitivity against the integrity of the country by calling the proceedings against the sedition and treason by the students as a threat to freedom of speech and expression. I want to ask him, whether he has joined hands with the separatist forces by supporting these slogans. Does he seek another partition of the country by supporting these separatists under the guise of freedom of speech?

It is a conspiracy to discredit the education centre by promoting terrorism and separatism in a leading university campus situated in the capital of India. I want to ask Rahul Gandhi would it be in the national interest if the central government sat idle doing nothing? Are you not promoting defected powers by protesting in support of these anti-nationalists?

At JNU, Rahul Gandhi went on to compare the current India to Hitler's Germany. Before saying something so petty he forgot that the independent India came closest to Hiter's Germany only to the Emergency imposed by Mrs Indira Gandhi in 1975. Let alone freedom of expression, her opponents were ruthlessly thrown into the jail during the Emergency.

The left wing leaders he is advocating today, have also been the victim of vandalism. Only the Congress posses Hitlerism, the BJP need not take lessons about the value of democracy and nationalism from the Congress party. Our political ideology is inspired by India's rich culture and the Constitution of India is the index of our regime. I want to know from Rahul Gandhi that does the Emergency of 1975 define his party's democratic values and does he not think Indira Gandhi's mentality was Hitler-like?

Innumerable soldiers have been martyred in the process of protecting the country's borders and controlling insurgency in Kashmir. Six Delhi police personnel, two security personnel and a gardener lost their lives in the 2001 attack on the country's Parliament. What sort of patriotism is he trying to introduce by backing these students who support separatism in Kashmir and the terror attack convict Afzal Guru? I want to ask him, would he like to offer tribute to the 10 Siachen soldiers including Lans Naik Hanumanthapa who lost their lives while guarding the country's borders?

After the BJP came into power and through Prime Minister Narendra Modi's efforts we are succeeding in controlling the anti-nationalism in Kashmir. But instead of supporting the government in these efforts Congress is encouraging the shameful incident in JNU despite being the main opposition party.

The anti-national slogans and the communist ideology in the name of progressiveness shall not be accepted in any form.

On behalf of 125 million citizens of the country I ask Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi to answer the above questions and I also demand Rahul Gandhi's apology to the entire nation for this disgraceful act.

(With inputs from ANI)