'Was upset to hear opposition parties used Rohith Vemula’s family for political reasons': Goyal

Days after Radhika Vemula, the mother of Ph.D. scholar Rohith Vemula, alleged that the Indian Union Muslim League had given fake promise of financial assistance, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday slammed the Opposition for playing a low-level politics.

Addressing a press conference, Union Railways and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal said,''I was anxious after reading Rohith Vemula's mother's statement. Till when some opposition parties will continue politics over it? The family is not financially stable & fake assurance of money was provided to a distressed mother for political purposes.''

''Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) made fake promises to provide them Rs 20 lakh & asked them (Rohith Vemula's family) to address their rallies & misrepresent the unfortunate incident & then not completed that promise. This is condemnable,'' said Piyush Goyal.

''I received info that even Congress President took them (Vemula's family) to stages & asked them to make statements. It should be exposed what was the intention behind it & what was offered. Rahul Gandhi should apologise for doing petty politics on pillar of lies,'' he also said.

''The statements of Rohith Vemula's mother are all before us, I believe there was an effort made to pressurise the mother to retract from what she had said, probably again on the pretext of giving her some money,'' added Goyal.

Earlier, Radhika had claimed that one of the two cheques given by the IUML party had bounced, forcing her to make several trips to the bank. "Why are they troubling me so much. They can just call me and hand it over, instead of sending it in this manner, in installments and by courier. If they don't want to give, they can say that openly as well, instead of harassing us in this way," she said.

The Indian Union Muslim League, however, called the cheque bounce a clerical mistake.

Rohith Vemula's suicide inside the Hyderabad university campus in 2016 had triggered a massive row with the Opposition calling it a case of atrocities against Dalits. However, an inquiry by the Andhra Pradesh government declared Vemula as belonging to the Other Backward Class and not a Dalit.