New Delhi: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday said the state police will be issuing a summons to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi regarding the violence that occurred during the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Guwahati. He also said that Gandhi will be required to personally appear before the police, and the summons will be sen t after the Lok Sabha elections.
"When someone breaks the law, summons will obviously be issued. Summons will go to Rahul Gandhi and he will have to stand here after Lok Sabha elections", PTI quoted Sarma as saying.
Assam CM mentioned that the summonses issued to Congress MLA Jakir Hussain Sikdar and Assam Congress president Bhupen Kumar Borah mark the start of legal proceedings. This action follows a case filed by Guwahati Police concerning Congress workers breaking barricades during a yatra in January, attempting to traverse main roads within the city.
Initially, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Assam Police issued notices to Sikdar and Ramen Kumar Sarma, the Congress Guwahati city general secretary. Both individuals have already been questioned by the police. Later, summonses were sent to the leader of opposition in the state assembly, Debabrata Saikia, and Borah as well, but neither of them appeared on the scheduled date. "We have issued notices to both of them for the second time. Saikia has been asked to appear before us on March 6, while Borah has been asked to come on March 7," a senior police official told PTI on condition of anonymity.
Notably, reacting to the fresh summons, Borah said he will not be able to appear on Thursday as his father's death anniversary falls on that day, and besides, he also has a party meeting on the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
"In Guwahati, 2,745 cases were lodged in a single year. But the police cannot look at those and solve them as the biggest criminal for them is Bhupen Borah", Borah remarked.
Earlier, other Congress leaders were also issued notices for their alleged role in violence in the yatra, but everything went silent after they joined the BJP. "However, I am not going to join the BJP", he said in an apparent reference to former Assam Congress working president Rana Goswami, who has recently joined the ruling party.
The incident on January 23 involved Congress workers, with Rahul Gandhi and other leaders present, breaking police barricades that had been set up after the Chief Minister threatened to file an FIR if the yatra attempted to enter the main city of Guwahati. This resulted in clashes between the party workers and the police, with mild lathi-charges used by the police to try to control the situation, though they were unsuccessful in protecting the barricades. Numerous police personnel and party workers sustained injuries during the confrontation.
After the barricades were dismantled, Rahul Gandhi asserted that while they could break barricades, they would not break the law. Subsequently, the Congress workers followed the permitted route along NH-27 in Guwahati without further incident. In response to this episode, the Chief Minister called the action Naxalite-style tactics and instructed the police to register a case.
File As Many Cases, Would Not Be Intimidated: Rahul
The Guwahati Police took action by lodging a suo motu FIR (First Information Report) against Rahul Gandhi and other leaders for alleged wanton acts of violence. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma stated that the instigators, including Gandhi, would be arrested after the Lok Sabha polls, indicating a stance of not wanting to politicize the issue before the general elections.
Apart from Rahul Gandhi, several other senior Congress leaders such as KC Venugopal, Jitendra Singh, Jairam Ramesh, Srinivas BV, Kanhaiyya Kumar, Gaurav Gogoi, Bhupen Kumar Borah, and Debabrata Saikia have also been named in the FIR.
In response to police cases against him and other Congress leaders in Assam, Gandhi had dared the BJP-ruled state to file as many cases as it can, asserting that he would not be intimidated. The yatra began in Manipur on January 14 and is scheduled to end in Mumbai on March 20. The Assam leg of the march, spanning from January 18 to January 25, covered 833 km across 17 districts. The overall yatra aims to cover 6,713 km over 67 days, passing through 110 districts in 15 states. This seems to be a significant political event aimed at mobilizing support and highlighting issues faced by the Congress party.