Starting with a poem and an invocation to the poet Kaifi Azmi, Congress MP and poet Imran Pratapgarhi gave a heartfelt speech in the Rajya Sabha on Monday, demanding a rollback of the fee hike at Allahabad University. The Maharashtra MP highlighted that students have been fasting in protest for 90 days. Evoking the rich history of the national university, the MP said it pained him to see the legacy of the university being trampled upon like this.

“The university which gave this country Pandit Motilal Nehru, Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, Dr Zakir Hussain...what have we given to that university?” he said. “The student’s union building in which martyr Lal Padmadhar stood on the roof and blew the bugle of rebellion against the British Raj, and gave his life, has had its gate locked today, so that students cannot raise their voice against the ‘new British’,” the MP said.