Congress workers staged a demonstration here on Thursday to protest the detention of party vice-president Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi on Wednesday when he had gone to meet the family of a veteran who had committed suicide over benefits under the one rank one pension scheme.
Led by Pradesh Congress Committee president Sachin Pilot, the party workers gathered at the Collectorate Circle and raised slogans against the NDA government, which they said had ignored the welfare of soldiers and misused the official machinery to target the protesters. They called the detention of Mr. Gandhi a “murder of democracy.”
While the Congress workers burnt the government in effigy, Mr. Pilot and the former Chief Minister, Ashok Gehlot, courted arrest at the Bani Park police station, protesting the “undemocratic manner” in which Mr. Gandhi was detained.
“The BJP government has not stopped politicising the Army’s surgical strikes [along the Line of Control] through its election posters in Uttar Pradesh. It has insulted the brave soldiers who were forced to observe a hunger strike to demand the OROP... All this has resulted in the unfortunate suicide by the veteran Ram Kishen Grewal,” Mr. Pilot said.
Addressing the protesters, Mr. Gehlot said the Delhi incidents had exposed the NDA government’s real face and proved that the Prime Minister and the Home Minister were working at the instance of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which he said was the biggest threat to the nation’s unity and integrity.
“The administration is being used against Opposition leaders on the Prime Minister’s direction,” he said.
The former Union Minister, Namonarain Meena; the former PCC presidents, B.D. Kalla and Chandrabhan; and Jaipur District Congress president Pratap Singh Khachariawas were present.
