Congress 'failed' to follow-up ragging ordinance: BJP

A Himachal Pradesh minister on Tuesday accused Congress of projecting the alleged ragging death of an MBBS student a poll issue and said the opposition party was "responsible" for such incidents as its previous governments failed to enact a law to check the menace.

"I fail to understand on what basis the Congress is trying to make death of first year MBBS student Aman Kachroo in Tanda Medical College a poll issue against BJP... in fact past Congress regimes are to be blamed for ragging in educational institutions of the state," health minister Rajeev Bindal told reporters here.

Bindal said the successive Congress governments did not initiate any measure either to re-validate the anti-ragging ordinance enacted during Shanta Kumar-led BJP Government in 1992 or enact a law on the subject.
    
The 1992 ordinance expired after the BJP government was dismissed in the wake of Babri Masjid demolition. The absence of a ragging law came to light only when police charged four seniors with the March 8 tragic death of the medical student and sought to implicate them under provisions of anti-ragging ordinance, besides section 302 of IPC, the minister said.
 
The Congress is raising the ragging death in poll campaign to highlight "poor" law and order situation under the BJP rule, he alleged.