New Delhi: A day ahead of Sonia Gandhi’s second appearance before the ED on July 26, the Congress said it will stage a nationwide “Satyagraha” to protest the issue.
“We will stage a peaceful protest across the country either in front of the Mahatma Gandhi’s statue or any other appropriate place to protest against the targeting of the Gandhis in a false case,” Congress spokesperson Shakti Sinh Gohil said. He said that the party's 'Satyagraha' in the national capital will go on despite the Delhi police having denied permission to stage a sit-in at Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial Raj Ghat.
“The police first denied permission for protests at Rajghat. Later, they said you can go inside the venue but there will be no media presence, no tent, no mike and no buses to fetch workers. Is it a democracy when the Congress has no right to sit at Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial,” said Gohil. “If the police will not allow us, our workers will do Satyagraha on the spot and then if something happens, the police and BJP will be responsible. Our MPs will protest against this attitude in front of the Mahatma Gandhi statue inside the Parliament complex on Tuesday,” said Gohil.
Earlier, the Congress had staged nationwide protests when the ED questioned Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case for five days in June and had agitated across the country on July 21, when Sonia Gandhi appeared before the probe agency for the first time. Union home minister Amit Shah had slammed the Congress saying that in contrast, PM Modi (who was Gujarat CM then) never staged a show of strength or protested when he was summoned by a special investigation team (SIT) probing the 2002 Gujarat riots.
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Gohil, a Gujarat veteran and a Rajya Sabha member, further slammed the BJP for comparing the two cases. “The BJP and its proxies are attempting to mislead the people of India by claiming that Narendra Modi as Gujarat chief minister had appeared before the SIT probing the 2002 Gujarat riots without making a hue and cry,” Gohil, a Rajya Sabha member, said.
“The fact is that the BJP had slogans written criticising the Congress party, the UPA government, and the then Governor of Gujarat Kamla Beniwal all across the state. The state BJP had also taken out processions and indulged in sloganeering at various locations. It also engaged in a campaign of calumny against the then Gujarat Governor, who had taken part in the Freedom Struggle as a young woman and was a committed Gandhian. The 80-year-old Governor had no role in the SIT’s summoning of the then chief minister but the petty BJP had slanderous slogans (Governor chor hai) written against her,” he said.
The Congress leader countered the BJP’s argument that then CM Modi had cooperated with the SIT. “It is also incorrect that Modiji fully cooperated with the SIT. On the contrary, a BJP MLA Kalu Malewad, an accused in the case, pleaded before the High Court that SIT had no right to call any witness or any person named in the FIR and demanded a stay on the SIT summons. Both the High Court and the Supreme Court rejected his petition, after which an isolated Modiji was forced to appear before the SIT,” said Gohil.
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Making a comparison between the SC-appointed SIT summons for Modi and the ED summons for the Gandhis, the Congress Rajya Sabha member claimed that while the senior BJP leadership had distanced itself with the then Gujarat CM, “who had no public sympathies,” the entire country was supporting the has sympathy with Gandhis.
“It is an open secret that the then senior BJP leadership chose to distance itself from Modiji and failed to support him nationwide despite his best efforts. Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s publicly-voiced concerns in 2002 over the Chief Minister’s abject failure to observe “Rajdharma” played an important role in Modiji’s isolation at the time. His minions today are making a virtue out of necessity,” said Gohil.
“It should be clear that the UPA government had never summoned Modiji or Amit Shah through its agencies or through any SIT formed by the government. The fact is that the Supreme Court and the High Court had constituted the SIT that had summoned Modiji and that the UPA had no role in it,” he said. “The court had given a clean chit but the ED reopened the case as part of BJP’s political vendetta,” he said.
