Rahul Gandhi has urged Congress-led state governments to enact the Rohith Vemula Act to address caste discrimination in higher educational institutions.

The leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha on Monday released copies of letters he wrote to Telangana chief minister Revanth Reddy and his Himachal Pradesh counterpart Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu last week, requesting them to enact such a law. Rahul had earlier released a letter written to Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah in this regard.

“Unless every student receives respect, security and equal opportunity without discrimination, our education system cannot be fair to all,” Rahul said.

Sharing his letters on X, he said: “The Congress Party is fully committed to providing equal access to education to every child and eliminating caste discrimination.”

The content of all three letters is identical. They begin with a reference to the discrimination faced by B.R. Ambedkar, the chairman of the drafting committee of the Constitution, and flag the deaths of Vemula at the University of Hyderabad, Payal Tadvi at a medical college in Maharashtra and Darshan Solanki at IIT Bombay. All three died by suicide after allegedly facing caste-based discrimination on campuses.

Terming the deaths as “murder”, Rahul made a case for enacting the Rohith Vemula Act to put an end to such discrimination.