Hyderabad: Gujarat legislator and Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani on Thursday urged Rohith Vemula’s mother – Radhika Vemula – to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and teach BJP leader Smriti Irani a lesson.
Mevani called the death of Rohith “an institutional murder”.
Speaking to reporters after visiting Manda Krishna Madiga, a Dalit leader who is currently lodged in a Hyderabad prison, Mevani said that he was planning to launch a nationwide alliance for the upliftment of Dalits.
Rohith Vemula, a 28-year-old Dalit research scholar at the University of Hyderabad, was found hanging in his friend’s hostel room on January 17, 2016. Alleging caste discrimination, his friends and family claimed that the varsity had stopped paying a fellowship of Rs 25,000 which forced him to take the drastic step.
His suicide had triggered a massive political row with the then Human Resource and Development Minister Smriti Irani coming under attack from various corners.
Later, a 2016 report by Justice Roopanwal Commission stated that there was no material on record to prove Rohith Vemula was a Dalit and attributed his suicide to personal reasons. The report also gave a clean chit to Union ministers Smriti Irani.
