The controversy of Taj Mahal has been created to deflect attention from the issue of shocking increase in the wealth of BJP national chief Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah, said student leader and former president of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union Kanhaiya Kumar.

He was in Chandigarh for a meet the press programme organised by the Chandigarh Press Club.

While speaking about the design behind the controversy of the origin of Taj Mahal, he said it a was deliberate act by the BJP leadership to deflect attention from the real issue, which was 16,000 times increase in the wealth of Jay Shah’s companies.

He said when the country was asking questions about unimaginable increase in Jay Shah’s wealth, a new controversy began. BJP MLA Sangeet Singh Som called Taj Mahal a blot on the Indian culture and history.

Kanhaiya said the situation in the country was such that when a media house or journalists try to raise real issues they were being intimidated with a 100-crore defamation case.

“Those who don’t get intimidated are being killed,” he said, while citing example of Bengaluru-based journalist Gauri Lankesh, who was killed outside her home. She was vocal against Hindu right wing groups. He said when we talk about democracy in the country, the reference point would be the Constitution and when you could not express your views freely, it indicates that the very Constitution was in danger. He said the way the Election Commission of India had become a partisan body by scheduling the Gujarat state Assembly elections as per the convenience of the BJP has also raised questions on the sanctity of this constitutional body. On talking about the government’s decisions of demonetisation and GST, Kanhaiya said it was a known fact that big fish eats small fish.

“But with both decisions the government has facilitated the big fish to eat the small fish,” he said.

He said the Prime Minister was just a face but he was dancing to the tunes of big corporate houses.

The way a RSS leader in Ludhiana was killed for having faith in certain kind of ideology was also unacceptable, added Kanhaiya.

end-of