TDP disagrees with govt on invoking sedition charge against JNU students

NDA constituent TDP was today at variance with the government over invoking sedition charge against JNU students, calling it "too harsh". Participating in a debate in the Lok Sabha over the JNU row and the controversy over Hyderabad Central University research scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide, TDP member Ravindra Babu said Jawaharlal Nehru University had a culture of debate and never any serious acrimonious incident occurred there. "But an unnecessary controversy has erupted there and sedition charges invoked against some students. I think it is too harsh a measure," he said. He instead favoured slapping sedition charge against people who deserved such treatment. "How many banks, one after the other, have declared NPAs? Everybody is competing. Economic frauds are committed by people who belittle the country, who embezzle the country s money and make India economically weak. Sedition charge needs to be invoked against them and not the students," he said. Babu said the students are "innocent" and need to be "corrected". "We cannot do it by punishing them. By punishing them we will make them hardcore criminals. Let us not do that," he said. "We are very proud of all our institutions. There has always been unity in diversity. If anybody who criticises India is labelled as anti-national, then Ambedkar also needs to be labelled as anti-national because he burnt 'Manusmrti' in public," Babu said.