New Delhi, 18 July (H.S.): Leaders of several opposition parties, including the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Samajwadi Party (SP), and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), have strongly condemned the hospitalisation of environmentalist Sonam Wangchuk, who was taken to a hospital while observing an indefinite hunger strike at Jantar Mantar.

AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal said that instead of forcibly removing Wangchuk, the Narendra Modi government should have engaged in a dialogue with him. He alleged that rather than suppressing the “Cockroach Movement”, the government should focus on reforming the country’s education and examination system. Kejriwal said that the government’s decision to deal with Wangchuk through force itself reflected its failure.

AAP national spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj claimed that there was an intelligence failure on the part of the Delhi Police during the protest at Jantar Mantar, as the authorities underestimated the connection between the “Cockroach Movement” and Generation Z. He alleged that the Modi government, in panic, removed Delhi Police Commissioner Satish Golcha and that the newly appointed commissioner decided to take action against Wangchuk on his very first day in office.

AAP senior leader Manish Sisodia alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s response to the issue of paper leaks was to suppress those raising their voices against such irregularities. He claimed that those questioning the examination system were being prevented from speaking out.

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav described the forceful removal of Sonam Wangchuk from his indefinite hunger strike venue as a highly condemnable incident. He demanded that the identities of those who allegedly entered the protest site suddenly in misleading plain clothes and carried out the action should be made public.

SP MP Dimple Yadav said that forcibly removing Wangchuk was not merely an administrative action but an attack on democracy and the Constitution. She alleged that the government was no longer willing to tolerate even peaceful protests, calling the move an act of oppression. She said that when peaceful voices are silenced, both the Constitution and democracy are harmed, and suppressing the voice of people like Sonam Wangchuk amounts to suppressing the soul of the nation.

CPI-M leaders also strongly condemned the alleged forcible detention of Sonam Wangchuk and Abhijeet Dipke. They said that instead of taking action against those responsible for examination paper leaks and holding the Education Minister accountable, the government was attempting to suppress peaceful democratic protests. The party alleged that the government was trying to evade accountability. The sudden removal of the Delhi Police Commissioner shortly before the action also raised serious questions over the alleged political misuse of the police machinery, CPI-M leaders said.

It may be noted that Delhi Police admitted Sonam Wangchuk to Safdarjung Hospital on Saturday morning after he had been sitting on an indefinite hunger strike at Jantar Mantar for the past 20 days. Wangchuk was participating in a peaceful movement initiated by the social media campaign “Cockroach Janata Party (CJP)”, demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over alleged irregularities in the education system and cases of examination paper leaks.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar