Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday said the shirtless protest organized by the Congress youth wing at the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi on Friday was inappropriate, even as he maintained his broader criticism of the BJP-led central government.
“We may have differences within India, and the BJP government is actually cheating all of us. But that is a separate thing. What the Congress did on the global platform was not appropriate. They should have refrained from doing something that brings shame to our country in front of foreign delegates and world representatives,” Yadav said while speaking to party workers in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, according to news agency ANI.
Yadav, whose party belongs to the opposition India Bloc alongside the Congress, was careful to separate his objection to the protest from any broader political differences with the alliance.
The controversy stems from a protest organized by Indian Youth Congress workers at the India AI Impact Summit held at the Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi. The workers, four of whom have been arrested so far, took off their shirts and walked through the exhibition hall displaying T-shirts with slogans “PM is hacked”, targeting the Indo-US trade deal.
The summit was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and attended by global technology leaders, including Sam Altman and Sundar Pichai, as well as foreign dignitaries and global representatives.
Delhi Police arrested four of the men and detained them for five days after a local court rejected their bail application.
Congress defended the protest and its method. Spokesman Pawan Khera said the IYC workers reflected the anger of the youth and said the protest was meant to be visible.
“The protest is taking place where people see it. The protest is taking place where there are media cameras,” Khera said, also raising questions about what he described as an “endangered” India-US trade deal.
Sambit Patra, spokesperson for the Bharatiya Janata Party, described the Congress as “bareless, brainless and shameless”. Former Union Minister Smriti Irani described the protest as an “attack on India’s interests” and said it showed “contempt for the people of India and India’s entrepreneurial spirit”.
Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan described what happened as an “act of sedition”.
Clashes between BJP workers and Congress workers were reported in Indore, Puducherry and Delhi.
