A day after he was questioned for over 10 hours, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi appeared before the Enforcement Directorate ( ED ) again on Tuesday and was interrogated throughout the day even as several veteran leaders were also detained by the Delhi police and “taken to unknown locations”.
Amid sloganeering from the Congress party leaders and workers alleging “vendetta politics”, Rahul reached the ED
office accompanied by his sister and party leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. He is being questioned by the officials for his alleged role in a money-laundering case linked to the National Herald newspaper.
After AICC general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal was allegedly manhandled by the Delhi Police on Monday, it was the turn of Youth Congress President Srinivas BV on Tuesday.
Srinivas was seen being dragged away by several police officials amid massive protests and stuffed into a bus full of detained Congress workers. In the visuals that went viral, he can be seen resisting attempts to ferry him away, yelling at the media cameras that the case against Rahul Gandhi is fake and politically motivated. He was eventually detained and taken away on a police bus.
“They should be ashamed of the way they behaved with women workers and senior leaders. This is political vendetta,” he told a section of the media and added that they didn’t even spare Members of Parliament. “This has happened for the first time in the world. They should be ashamed,” he added.
Four to five policemen tried to pick up the Indian Youth Congress head when he tried to cross a police barricade but he aggressively resisted attempts to detain him; a woman party worker can also be seen trying to pull him away from the police. As the police pushed him into the police bus, party workers could be seen pushing him back.
This comes a day after the BJP taunted Srinivas BV by sharing a video from yesterday’s protest where he could be seen escaping detention by running away from a police vehicle.
The police and paramilitary personnel allege that Congress workers slapped them and refused to comply when asked to leave as section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) preventing assembly of groups of people was imposed in the area.
Top Congress leaders like Harish Rawat, Randeep Singh Surjewala, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Gaurav Gogoi, and KC Venugopal were detained from outside the Congress office as they tried marching to the ED’s office. Chhattisgarh’s chief minister Bhupesh Baghel sat in the middle of the road to protest police action, though he was not detained.
Congress has claimed it wanted to carry out a peaceful “satyagraha” march but the Centre is using police force to stifle their voices of protest.
Many party workers have also been detained. Visuals show some of them being dragged and being manhandled by the police. Police and paramilitary forces have been deployed in large numbers around the party’s main Delhi office. Several barricades have been placed to prevent movement towards the grand old party’s Akbar road office.
In a strongly-worded tweet, KC Venugopal stated, “On the second consecutive day we have been taken in police custody to an unknown location. They can imprison us but they can not imprison the truth. The fight for the truth shall go on!”
Former union minister P Chidambaram wondered speaking to TV crews about the questioning of Rahul Gandhi without even an FIR. “What is the offence? Where is the FIR?”, he asked.
