Suraj Singh Thakur, head of the Mumbai unit of the National Students Union of India, the Congress’ student body, has been suspended for allegedly dancing naked at a party function in Kandivali last month. The video of Mr Thakur dancing naked was uploaded on YouTube and was briefly trending, but it has now been removed from the website.
The incident reportedly took place at a NSUI coaching event at Kandivali, a suburb of Mumbai, on the night of April 14. Sources say Mr Thakur was drunk during the function.
According to NSUI and Congress leaders, NSUI leaders were to be given training under the Jawaharlal Nehru Leadership Institute. The party had chosen one Suresh Sharma from JNLI to conduct the training for NSUI leaders for three days, from April 13 to 15.
“Mr Thakur and his friends created such a ruckus that many of the NSUI delegates complained about them,” an NSUI member said.
Sources said those who attended the programme then directly informed Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi about Mr Thakur’s conduct. NSUI leaders said pictures depicting the ruckus that were clicked on cellphone cameras were also shown as “evidence” of how depraved Mr Thakur’s conduct was. Based on these complaints, NSUI president Rohit Chaudhary directed that Mr Thakur and two other NSUI office-bearers be suspended.
A video of the incident was uploaded on YouTube, but was subsequently taken off the website. The incident was trending on social networking site Twitter. “Suraj Thakur didn’t wait for Arvind Kejriwal to Expose. He did it himself”, went one tweet. Another tweet said: “Suraj Thakur heard how Congress is getting exposed everywhere. And well, one thing led to another...”
When contacted, Mr Thakur denied the nude dance allegations. A statement issued by NSUI read, “NSUI dismisses all news reports of the alleged nude party at an organisational function. There was no such incident at any of the organisational functions in Mumbai and there is absolutely no basis of these reports.”
The NSUI, however, confirmed “disciplinary action” against Mr Thakur, Hitendra Gandhi and Vicky Vhatkar for “misbehaving with some senior members of the organisation”.