Raipur: Former Chhattishgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh is on a sit-in protest outside the civil line police station along with other BJP leaders. The leaders held posters and placards saying, "Respect the Freedom of speech".
The Raipur police have summoned Raman Singh & BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra in the alleged Congress toolkit case.
Among other things, the police want to know if the Twitter account @drramansingh belonged to Singh, from where he got documents titled as AICC Research Project or Cornering Narendra Modi and BJP on COVID management, and the communication between other accused regarding the use of hashtag "CongressToolkitExposed" on social media, the official said.
On May 19, an FIR was registered at the Civil Lines station against Raman Singh, the BJP's national spokesperson Sambit Patra and others for allegedly spreading fake news and promoting enmity between classes in the toolkit row.
Raman Singh has claimed that the Bhupesh Baghel government is doing vendetta politics and FIR against him was registered on the instructions of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.
The former Chhattisgarh CM said that Congress had prepared a toolkit to defame Prime Minister Narendra Modi and registering a police complaint against him is a violation of his freedom of speech.
The case was filed on the complaint of Akash Sharma, the president of the National Students' Union of India's (NSUI) Chhattisgarh unit.
Sharma alleged that BJP leaders circulated fabricated content using a fake letterhead of the Congress, claiming it to be a toolkit developed by the Congress on how to target the Modi government for its handling of the pandemic.
Earlier, the BJP had hit out at the Congress for allegedly seeking to tarnish the image of the country and prime minister Narendra Modi by calling the new strain of coronavirus as "Modi strain" or "India strain".
Congress denied the allegation and claimed that the BJP was propagating a fake toolkit to defame it.