Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday targeted Union Home Minister Amit Shah over the alleged police crackdown on student protesters, accusing him of authorising the firing on demonstrators.
Participating in the Lok Sabha debate on the Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026, Gandhi claimed the home minister was absent from Parliament because he was "scared", drawing objections from the treasury benches.
"I am very happy today to see that he so called Home Minister of this country does not have the courage to come and sit here... why is the Home Minister not here today? The home minister is not here today because he is scared. The home minister authorised the shooting of our students. He put pellets into the blood of our students. He ordered the students of India to be shot," the Congress MP said.
The remarks triggered an uproar in the Lok Sabha, with BJP members demanding that Gandhi apologise and provide evidence to support his allegations. Speaker Om Birla intervened, saying allegations could not be made without evidence. He later expunged Rahul's remarks.
'Pradhan's resignation superficial, real enemy is RSS'
Calling former education minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation "superficial", Gandhi alleged that the RSS, and not the minister, controlled the education system.
"Rajnath Singh said that we are not the UPA, our ministers never resign. He is right. Resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan is superficial because Dharmendra Pradhan never ran the Education Ministry. The organisation that runs the Education Ministry is called the RSS. The man who runs it is an OSD sitting in the Minister's office," he said.
He also claimed the RSS wanted students to become "andhbhakts".
"So, what the students are really irritated about is that they are not allowed to be students in India, not allowed to follow their passion, not allowed to say what they want, they are not allowed to ask the questions that they want. They have to buy this nonsensical history that the RSS fantasises about... Dharmendra Pradhan is a symbol, the real enemy is the RSS... They are the people who want you to be 'Andhbhakts'," the LoP said.
Gandhi also claimed that every university vice-chancellor in the country was from the RSS, accusing the organisation of capturing the education system's "soul" through increasing privatisation.
"Everything has been privatized. Paper leaks... in one exam something happens, in another exam something else happens. Some people are allowed re-exam, some people are not allowed. Rampant privatisation means private companies are checking exams... wrong papers are going. It's a brutal, terrible system. It's an extortion system. The system has been captured... the soul of the system has been captured by the RSS," he said.
'Student protests reflect aspirations of India's youth'
Meanwhile, Gandhi said he was "very excited" and "reassured" by the student protests over the NEET paper leak issue, describing them as a powerful expression of India's youth.
"I was very excited, reassured by what the future of this country did on our streets. This was not anger, not violence, not hatred, this was an expression, deep expressions of the youth of this country, of the future generation of this country," he said.
"All parties should respect this expression, including my friends in the BJP. If my friends in the BJP were to go and ask their own children about what their brothers and sisters were doing, they would find agreement among their own children. There is nothing wrong with what happened, and every Indian should be proud," he added.
Gandhi said a conversation with a group of students had given him a different perspective on how young people viewed education and knowledge.
"A good starting point would be a conversation I had with some students, young girls, which gave me a very interesting perspective," he said.
Recalling the interaction, Gandhi said he asked one of the students what it meant to be a student. "The question I asked the girl was that you said you were a student -- what does that mean? Does it mean you study in a college, in a school, you read books?," he said.
"She said a student is someone who has an open mind (and) an open heart. A student is someone who accepts that he does not know everything. Whatever he knows will be superseded by new knowledge. He knows the universe is dynamic. He also understands that knowledge is constantly changing. The most important quality, she said, that a student has is humility," Gandhi continued.
The Leader of Opposition said the student also described another category of people who believed they knew everything.
"They are absolutely convinced that they know everything. They believe that the universe is static and they believe that knowledge emerges from inside them. They are arrogant. They don't listen, they don't respect other people's truth. She said I call them idiots," he said.
Gandhi further said the student had told him that the hallmark of a student was that "he wears the truth in their chest", while the other category needed to create an image.
"And as that image is not true because the idiot is trying to pretend he is God, he has to create this image," he said.
"I asked about the third category -- andhbhakt. He is absolutely convinced that the idiot is a God," Gandhi continued.
He said the framework came from an 18-year-old student and argued that, although the protests centred on examinations, they reflected broader concerns about the education system.
The remarks triggered another uproar in the House, with Speaker Om Birla asking Gandhi to confine his speech to the debate.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju objected to the use of what he described as an "unparliamentary" word.
Gandhi said he was attributing the term to a student and was not referring to any member of the House. Birla said the unparliamentary expression would be expunged from the proceedings.
(With inputs from ANI and PTI)
