New Delhi: BJP MP Anurag Thakur on Tuesday hit out at the Congress, accusing it of “mocking” India’s culture after Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra described a member of the government’s education reform panel as a “Gaumutra expert”, during the debate on The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026, in the Lok Sabha.
Speaking in the lower House, Thakur accused Priyanka Gandhi of “misleading” the nation with “an innocent face”.
He was responding to her criticism of Prof. V. Kamakoti, Director of IIT Madras and one of the six domain experts appointed to a multidisciplinary panel tasked with overhauling the National Testing Agency (NTA) in the wake of the NEET paper leak controversy.
“His (Kamakoti’s) qualification is greater than that of your (Gandhi’s) entire family,” he said.
Further attacking the Congress, he said: “They don’t even attempt to understand India’s culture and instead make a mockery of it. The Congress is making fun of a prestigious scientist who wants to gain knowledge on India’s institutional heritage.”
“It has always been doing this with our culture, tradition and scientists,” he added.
Asserting that Dr Kamakoti is at the prime of modern science, the BJP MP said: “On one hand, if he is an expert on Artificial Intelligence, he can study about ‘gaumutra’, on the other, there’s no stopping on that.”
Adding to his criticism, Thakur said: “I thought Priyanka Gandhi would be a bit better than her brother Rahul Gandhi, but after she took a jibe at the IIT Director, it seems both Gandhi siblings have the same frame of mind, and maybe ‘Gaumutra’ can cure that.”
Drawing similarities between paper leaks and terrorism and Maoism, he further said: “Just like the Modi government brought an end to Naxalism (Maoism), it will also abolish the problem of paper leaks from its root.”
The BJP MP from Himachal Pradesh’s Hamirpur also came down heavily on Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, for staging the Congress sit-in near Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s residence on July 21.
“Rahul Gandhi thought that none of the youth reached out to him so what should he do…he did what no LoP should have ever done, he went and lied down near the Prime Minister’s residence,” Thakur said.
Taking a dig at the LoP, he added: “I can understand your pain, you are not getting the opportunity to go inside the (official) PM’s residence.”
“You are never going to get the opportunity to go inside,” he asserted.
Referring to the claims of the Opposition as well as the agitators that certain “goons” had entered the protests, Thakur said: “I appeal to Union Home Minister Amit Shah to take strict action against those anti-social elements who had attempted to derail the protests.”
“The youth of this country had come to talk about the paper leak issue and had come with demands of a better system. They didn’t come to get physical with the police or burn police vans,” he underlined.
Further, he also took a jibe at the Samajwadi Party saying, “Some of the SP MPs were telling me that the protesters asked them to go away; I said it is due to their track record.”
“Rahul Gandhi could not muster the courage to join the student protest; that is why he instead went near the PM’s residence, and in fact, in his attempt to steal the spotlight, he didn’t even call the other INDIA bloc allies. There is this lack of trust in your alliance,” he added
Thakur also reiterated fellow party MP Tejasvi Surya’s statement that the Samajwadi Party (SP) had removed the Kalyan Singh-led BJP government’s anti-copying act of 1992, amid loud protests from the SP members.
“Uttar Pradesh was made into a ‘copying and paper leak state’ under the SP regime,” he remarked.
(IANS)
