PoliticsBJP vs Congress
BJP women's wing marches on Congress HQ, demands MP Bimol Akoijam's expulsion
JNU dismissed the Inner Manipur MP from his professorship after 11 students complained of harassment, and police have filed an FIR. He denies the charges and calls it a witch hunt.
Key points
- BJP Mahila Morcha workers marched towards Congress headquarters and burned an effigy of Rahul Gandhi.
- JNU dismissed Akoijam on 9 October after its internal committee examined complaints from 11 women students.
- Akoijam denies the allegations and has called the dismissal a political witch hunt.
Workers of the BJP’s women’s wing marched towards the Congress headquarters in New Delhi on Monday and burned an effigy of Rahul Gandhi, demanding that the party expel Inner Manipur MP Angomcha Bimol Akoijam. Jawaharlal Nehru University dismissed him from its faculty last week over sexual harassment complaints from women students.
Police stopped the march on Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg, near ITO, before it reached the building. Several protesters were detained and taken away in a bus. The Mahila Morcha had held a similar protest outside the Congress office in Lucknow on Saturday.
The case against the MP
Akoijam taught at JNU’s Centre for the Study of Social Systems. On 9 October the university dismissed him with immediate effect after its Internal Committee, which examined complaints from 11 women students, recommended major punishment. The students had complained in May. They alleged that he called them to his campus residence on the pretext of meetings and harassed them, and some alleged obscene remarks in class.
On Sunday, Delhi Police registered an FIR at Vasant Kunj North police station on a complaint from JNU’s chief security officer. It invokes Sections 75 and 79 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which deal with sexual harassment and insulting the modesty of a woman. Police say the investigation is continuing. No court has ruled on the allegations.
What the BJP is asking
Union Women and Child Development Minister Annpurna Devi joined the protest, held under the banner “Nari Shakti Hunkar”. “When will you break your silence, Rahul Gandhi?” she asked, accusing the Congress of using its campaign against the Chief Election Commissioner to divert attention.
On Sunday, BJP MP Bansuri Swaraj had set out the party’s charge at its headquarters. “The kind of allegations that have emerged are bone-chilling; they shake one’s very soul,” she said. She pointed to Rahul Gandhi’s call to “smash the patriarchy” and asked: “Is ‘Smash the patriarchy’ merely and exclusively political rhetoric for you, just a political gimmick?”
For the Congress party, feminism merely begins with a hashtag and ends right at the threshold of accountability.
Manipur BJP president Sharda Devi and Nagaland Rajya Sabha MP S Phangnon Konyak also spoke at Monday’s protest. No response from the Congress leadership to the demand for Akoijam’s expulsion was reported on Monday.
Akoijam’s answer
Akoijam denies the charges. At a late-night press conference in Imphal after his dismissal, with Congress representatives beside him, he called the action a political witch hunt meant to silence him before the Manipur Assembly election, due early next year, and said he had not received the inquiry report.
“No one can intimidate me through this ‘low-level politics’ or force me to back down,” he said. “I will fight till I die for my land and my people.”
The JNU Teachers’ Association has also questioned the process. It argues that under the university’s statutes only the Executive Council can dismiss a faculty member, and says no council meeting was called before the order was issued.