Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi has defended the right to peaceful protest after police removed a tent used by Lower Primary School Teacher rank holders outside the Kerala Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram and took protest leader Valarmathi into custody before shifting her to hospital.
The rank holders were on hunger strike, demanding that the Kerala Public Service Commission make appointments to government schools from the LPST rank list before it expires. According to the report, the protesters have decided to continue their agitation.
Responding to questions about the police action, Priyanka said the right to protest was guaranteed by the Constitution and that people were free to demonstrate peacefully against the policies of any government, including one led by the Congress party.
“My view across India and the world is that people have the right to protest. In democracies, this right is guaranteed by the constitution. I believe people should be allowed to exercise their constitutional rights,” she told mediapersons.
She said police intervention would be justified if a protest involved violence, became excessively aggressive or resulted in people being hurt. However, she added that a peaceful protest, including one directed against a government or its policies, should be allowed to continue while protesters respected the rule of law.
The police action drew criticism from the Left Democratic Front and others, the report said. The incident has also brought attention to the use of prominent government precincts as sites for sustained public demonstrations and to the administrative consequences of an expiring recruitment rank list.
The protest concerns candidates placed on the Kerala PSC’s LPST rank list, who are seeking appointments to government schools before the list expires. The report does not provide the total number of candidates affected, the expiry date of the list or the government’s response to the appointment demand.
Priyanka’s comments came as the Congress continued to oppose the Centre’s reported move to denotify Jantar Mantar as a protest site, describing that proposal as anti-democratic. Her statement in Thiruvananthapuram therefore addressed both the immediate police action against the teachers’ rank holders and the broader question of how peaceful demonstrations should be handled by public authorities.
The LPST rank holders are expected to continue their protest while seeking appointments through the Kerala Public Service Commission before the rank list expires.
