Congress accuses BJP of adopting double standards over tricolour in NIT Srinagar

New Delhi: A Congress member in Rajya Sabha raised the issue of police lathicharge at NIT in Srinagar on Saturday and accused the ruling BJP of not allowing the students to hoist the national flag there.

During the Zero Hour, Pramod Tiwari said ever since BJP government came to power at the Centre, organisations related to it were trying to create unrest in educational institutions, be it Hyderabad university, JNU or NIT Srinagar.

He accused the ruling party of adopting double standards regarding the Tricolour, saying BJP’s policy regarding the national flag in Kashmir was different from the rest of the country.

Students of the NIT wanted to hoist the national flag at their campus, but they were beaten up, he said, adding that these NIT students were now protesting in Delhi.

“They (students) were only demanding that they be allowed to hoist the national flag and BJP government is not letting them hoist the tricolour...They are not permitting this,” the Congress member said while criticising BJP and organisations related to it.

He alleged that the BJP was “sowing seeds of poison” in educational institutions of the country.

Prabhat Jha (BJP) raised the issue of spread of cancer among children in the age group of 1-14 years.

Citing a report, he said about 50 children in this age bracket die of cancer on an average each day. The toll due to cancer in the children is about 18,000 a year, he said.

He asked the government to study the report and demanded a national policy for detection and prevention of cancer in the children.

Deputy chairperson P J Kurien said that cancer is so rampant that government should take the issue very seriously as the disease is spreading “like anything in the country”.

Responding to it, minister of state for parliamentary affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said the government was taking steps to deal with the problems posed by cancer.

In his Zero Hour mention, Motilal Vora (Cong) Mahyco Monsanto Biotech Ltd (MMBL) was illegally extracting money from cotton farmers. He said farmers were being cheated of Rs 1,300 per 450 gram packet of cotton seeds.

He asked the government to recover the illegal extractions made by the company.