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Updated: Feb 18, 2016 13:00 IST

Scaling up its attack on the BJP, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal will take the battle over the JNU crackdown and the ‘lawlessness’ in the country to President Pranab Mukherjee’s doors on Thursday.

On their radar is the NDA government, and the BJP.

Jungle raj in Delhi, alleges Congress

On Wednesday, the Congress had targeted the Delhi Police commissioner BS Bassi and called the repeated attacks in Patiala House court as a reflection of the “jungle raj” prevailing in Delhi.

It is a point that the Delhi Cabinet led by Kejriwal would also stress when they meet President Mukherjee soon after. Delhi Police reports directly to the Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung, not the elected government.

A senior Congress leader said Gandhi sees the police crackdown targeting JNU students as a broader attempt to suppress the voice of the youth, right from the government’s handling of the agitation in Pune’s FTII to the Rohith Vemula suicide in Hyderabad and now, the JNU row.

Read more: Politics at JNU: Kanhaiya may have been victim of various shades of Red

Gandhi would also draw the President’s attention to the attack on the media at the Patiala House court and seek his intervention to safeguard the constitutional rights of people.

Gandhi has already visited the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus to express solidarity with students protesting the arrest of their leader Kanhaiya Kumar. Kumar has been booked under charges of sedition over a protest organised in the JNU campus on February 9 against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.

Read more: Let Kanhaiya come, we will burn him alive: Lawyer recalls JNU horror

The Congress vice-president had earlier visited the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) at Pune to express solidarity with students protesting against the appointment of actor Gajendra Chauhan as its chairperson as well as Hyderabad university.

The intent is clear – the Congress is desperately trying to win back not only the support of the Dalits and the youth who had deserted the party in the wake of a series of corruption scandals during the UPA rule.