Power hungry BJP killing democracy said Sonia Gandhi
AB Wire
NEW DELHI: Congress leaders including party president Sonia Gandhi, vice-president Rahul Gandhi and former prime minister Manmohan singh were briefly arrested by parliament street police during their Save Democracy March. They were released later.
Party workers protested the arrest outside the Parliament Street Police station, climbing over police barricades.
The party had taken out a ‘Loktantra Bachao March’ (Save Democracy March) against the BJP government, starting from Jantar Mantar.
Congress is agitating against what it calls the anti-democratic policies of BJP and the march started just after Sonia Gandhi Concluded her speech.
“Destabilising elected governments in states with a motive to capture power all over, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is ‘killing democracy’,” Sonia Gandhi said .
“Their (BJP) lust for power is increasing and thus they are killing the democratically-elected governments forcefully,” Sonia said, addressing the crowd at the Loktantra Bachao March.
She said BJP was not concerned about the democracy as their only motive “is to capture power everywhere”, adding Congress was a party that had “given their blood and laid down lives to protect the basic principles of humanity”.
She termed increasing attacks over the Congress by the BJP-led central government as “anti-national” and said “nothing new for us to fight anti-national elements. Life has taught me to struggle, we have faced a lot of challenges. They don’t know what we are made of”.
Earlier, Rahul Gandhi also launched a scathing attack at the Modi government, saying the country was being run by only two persons — Modi and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. “Today in India, the voice of only two people are heard, Narendra Modiji and Mohan Bhagwatji.”
He alleged that the government made false accusations against people who are critical of the prime minister and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He said: “Anyone who dares to speak against them (Modi and Bhagwat) are charged with false allegations.”
Rahul also alleged that the Union government broke all the laws by destabilising the Congress government in Arunachal Pradesh and removed all the elected leaders.
Congress and the BJP have been of late involved in a bitter banter on a range of issues, including the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper scam.
(With Agency Inputs)