Congress leader Rahul Gandhi defied administrative restrictions on Thursday as he launched the party’s youth outreach initiative, ‘Shiksha Nyay Samvad’, from the Ambedkar Welfare Hostel in Darbhanga, Bihar.

Despite the district administration’s denial of permission for the event, he went ahead with the programme, engaging directly with students in a spirited interaction focused on education and social justice.

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As his cavalcade was stopped at the hostel gate, he posted a message on ‘X’, “The ‘double engine deceptive government’ of NDA in Bihar is preventing me from talking to Dalit and backward students in Ambedkar Hostel. Since when has dialogue become a crime? Nitishji, what are you afraid of? Do you want to hide the state of education and social justice in Bihar?”

Later, he was allowed to have a brief interaction with the students. Addressing the audience, he said that Dalits, backward, the most backward, and tribals face injustice in the country 24 hours a day, and promised to continue his fight against discrimination.

He said, “You are discriminated against, and you are stopped in the education system. That’s why we demand that the caste census should be done in a proper manner, the SC-ST sub-plan should be implemented, and reservation should be implemented in private colleges and universities.”

He expressed confidence that the NDA government will have to accept his demands, just as it agreed to hold the caste census across India.

“Narendra Modi and the Bihar government are not implementing this law, so we will continue to put pressure on them. Just like they could not stop us from coming here, they will not be able to stop us in the future,” he added.

On Tuesday, NSUI National In-charge Kanhaiya Kumar has announced that the party will launch a state-wide youth outreach programme to highlight the plight of students and youth in Bihar, and Rahul Gandhi will launch it from Darbhanga.

On Wednesday, the Darbhanga district administration refused to grant permission to hold the meeting on the premises of Ambedkar Welfare Hostel. Later in the day, the venue had been shifted to Town Hall, Darbhanga.

However, on Thursday, the party leaders asserted that the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha will meet the students at the hostel, thus setting the stage for a confrontation between party workers and the district administration.

As part of the programme, national leaders of the party will meet students at 60 different places across Bihar. The leaders will visit SC, ST, OBC, minorities and girls hostels as well as community halls in various cities and towns to get first hand information about the problems they have been facing.

From Darbhanga, Gandhi reached Patna, where he watched the movie ‘Phule’ with a select audience of about 250 intellectuals and politicians.