Delhi Confidential: KV Thomas’s demonetisation revelation irks Congress; DU professor’s TV debate row triggers campus backlash

Welcome to Delhi Confidential, your inside track to the power corridors of the capital. Today: From KV Thomas detailing past parliamentary friction with Rahul Gandhi to a Delhi University professor apologising following an escalating row over comments during a television debate.

1. 01

   Past Tense

   AT A time when Keralam is hosting a two-day conference of Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairpersons, former PAC chief K V Thomas, who was a minister in the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government, has spilled the beans again. Thomas has irked his former party colleagues with a “revelation” that Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi started distancing from him after he refused to call Prime Minister Narendra Modi before the PAC while examining the 2016 demonetisation policy. Thomas, a three-term PAC chairman, said that although he had told PM Modi in a private meeting that demonetisation was a wrong move, he could not summon him due to technical issues — the PAC had majority members from the ruling side and there was no consensus on the matter. Thomas, a veteran politician, has also recorded these developments in his book — Kumbalangiyil Ninnu Chengottayilekku (From Kumbalangi to Red Fort).

2. 02

   Debate and Backlash

   A PROFESSOR of political science at Delhi University, Sangeet Kumar Ragi, is at the centre of a controversy. During a TV debate, he used some objectionable words against a Samajwadi Party activist and a specific backward caste in north India. Ragi, who is seen as close to the ruling BJP, later posted on X that he had retaliated after the SP activist targeted him personally, adding that the latter had done the same earlier too. Ragi said the words were not meant for an entire community. He apologised to anyone who thought he was targeting a community. The matter, however, escalated, and some students reportedly vandalised the professor’s chamber in the university in his absence.