ED questioning Rahul: Congress plans to scale up protests, raises issue of MPs' manhandling with LS speaker

The Congress leaders raised the issue by lodging a complaint about the alleged trespass of party headquarters by police on June 15 and urged the Lok Sabha Speaker to act over the alleged mishandling of women lawmakers by the police on Wednesday, reports Amit Agnihotri

New Delhi:The Congress on Thursday upped the ante over the ED questioning of Rahul Gandhi. They raised the issue by lodging a complaint about the alleged trespass of party headquarters by police on June 15 and urged the Lok Sabha Speaker to act over the alleged mishandling of women lawmakers by the police on Wednesday. The AICC general secretaries held a meeting with the state unit chiefs to coordinate the nationwide gherao of Raj Bhavans that the Congress will carry out on Friday. Congress will stage this protest against the issue of police forcibly entering the party headquarters on Wednesday and the alleged roughing up of party workers. The party will also stage protests at the district headquarters across the country on June 17 to protest the targeting of the Gandhis by the Central government.

“We discussed the plan of action against the police atrocities and the brutal crackdown on the Congress workers and leaders and the further course of action,” KC Venugopal, General Secretary of AICC, in-charge of Organisation said. The complaint was lodged by AICC Secretary Challa Vamshichand Reddy with the Tughlak Road Police Station, urging the authorities concerned to take note of alleged atrocities against the party workers and leaders.

On Wednesday, the party workers alleged that they were being stopped by the police from going to the party office for routine work. The move came on the third consecutive day of questioning of Rahul Gandhi by the ED in the alleged National Herald money laundering case. Party chief Sonia Gandhi, recovering from Covid-related ailments in a hospital, is scheduled to appear before the probe agency on June 23.

On Wednesday, the party had urged the Centre to stop alleged leaks by ED over the ongoing questioning saying this was against the rules. “We have no problem with the ED asking questions. But, this is a conspiracy to defame our leaders as there are no real charges. Such action should not be taken with malice. Rahulji is being questioned for long hours every day. We wonder how many questions the ED has,” Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said in the Lok Sabha.

“The police detained several of our leaders and MPs on Wednesday. They misbehaved as if we are terrorists,” said Chowdhury. He argued that the Congress workers had been facing police action for the past three days for merely trying to accompany Rahul to the ED office peacefully. “The clothes of one of our women MP Jothi Mani were torn by the police. She was denied water in this hot weather,” he said.

The area around party headquarters has been sealed and the entire city has been converted into a fortress, what for, he said. Later, a group of leaders met Vice-President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu at his residence over the alleged atrocities and misbehaviour against the party lawmakers. “We submitted a letter to the V-P over the alleged atrocities and police misbehaviour with several leaders, including one of our woman MPs Jebi Mather,” former Finance Minister P Chidambaram said after the meeting. Chidambaram, Pramod Tiwari and Shakti Singh Gohil suffered injuries while protesting over the ED issue on June 13.