Student protest crackdown
\nGandhi staged sit-in protest outside Modi\u2019s residence before being bundled into bus and taken away
\n NEW DELHI
\nIndia\u2019s main opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, demanded on Tuesday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi step down over the police crackdown against student protests calling for reforms in the education system.
\nModi must resign \u201cfor destroying the future of India\u2019s youth\u201d, the Congress Party leader said in a post on social media as he led a march with other MPs towards the prime minister\u2019s residence in New Delhi.
\n\u201cThe government doesn\u2019t want to take any accountability, nor does it want to have a debate on it in parliament,\u201d said Gandhi, the leader of the opposition in the lower house.
\nGandhi later staged a sit-in protest outside Modi\u2019s residence, where cries of \u201cwe want justice\u201d were interspersed with chants of \u201cdown with Modi\u201d. Hours later, AFP journalists saw Gandhi and other parliamentarians being bundled into a bus and taken away from the area.
\nThe developments come after police said 60 protesters were injured in clashes with security forces in the heart of New Delhi on Monday, marking the biggest street rally in the capital for about five years.
\nThousands of protesters had gathered to demand the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, following an appeal by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) online movement. Police fired tear gas and charged with batons at protesters, who responded by pelting stones. At least 118 police personnel were also injured, Delhi Police said of Monday\u2019s clashes. \u201cWhat happened yesterday is our Constitution got trampled upon,\u201d Sandeep Dixit, a senior leader of the Congress party, told =.
\n\u201cAfter that, no self-respecting politician or citizen can stand aside.\u201d
\nThe CJP vowed to press on with its demands for Pradhan\u2019s removal as thousands of protesters remained camped at Delhi\u00b4s Jantar Mantar protest site on Tuesday, many of them calling for changes to the wider education system.
\nThe CJP has won millions of followers on social media since its launch in May, fuelling one of the biggest challenges to Hindu-nationalist leader Modi since he won his third term in office in 2024.
\n\u2018Shameful day\u2019
\n\u201cWe won\u2019t stop. Pradhan has to be sacked,\u201d CJP spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka said on social media.
\nCJP founder Abhijeet Dipke urged protesters on Tuesday not to lose hope.
\n\u201cThey want to break our spirit,\u201d he said, perched on top of a lorry. \u201cDo not let them silence you.\u201d
\nProtest organisers condemned the \u201chigh-handedness\u201d of the authorities and said hundreds of protesters had been injured.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a shameful day in the history of Indian democracy that people, honest students, who had come for a genuine issue were brutally beaten by the Delhi police,\u201d Ranka told AFP.
\nRanka, who met senior minister JP Nadda on Monday, said the government had yet to respond to their demands.
\nProtesters said they would not relent.
\n\u201cWe have become even more fearless now,\u201d said 25-year-old law student Chandra Pratap Sishwi.
\n\u201cWhen I saw people being beaten up by the police like that, my blood boiled.\u201d
\nParliament was adjourned on Tuesday after the opposition benches demanded a discussion on the alleged \u201cbrutality unleashed on students\u201d.
\nDespite rapid economic growth, millions of people in the world\u2019s most populous nation still struggle to find stable and well-paying jobs, fuelling discontent.
\nThe protests follow a series of examination scandals that have shaken confidence in India\u2019s testing system.
\nSome 2.2 million aspiring medical students sat for a re-examination under tight security last month after the previous test was scrapped following the leak of a question paper.
\nThat came on top of another scandal related to the online marking of tests taken by nearly two million high school students.
\nParliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju defended the government on Tuesday, saying it had acted swiftly after the exam paper leaks by arresting several people.
\nHe said Modi had called for a \u201cfoolproof system\u201d to prevent irregularities in the future at a closed-door meeting with his allies on Tuesday.
\nModi has yet to comment directly on the protests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Student protest crackdown Gandhi staged sit-in protest outside Modi\u2019s residence before being bundled into bus and taken away NEW DELHI India\u2019s main opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, demanded on Tuesday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi step down over the police crackdown against student protests calling for reforms in the education system. Modi must resign \u201cfor destroying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557658,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-557648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n