CHANDIGARH: Senior Congress leader and Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh has vehemently opposed the 'undemocratic and unconstitutional' detention of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra by the Uttar Pradesh Government.
Reacting to the UP government’s attempt to stifle Priyanka’s democratic right to protest the Sonbhadra violence, and to join the victims’ families in their grief, Amarinder said the BJP government in the state had stooped to a new low in curbing the fundamental rights of citizens.
He urged the UP government to immediately revoke its detention orders and allow Priyanka to continue with her peaceful and democratic protest. He also asked the BJP-led government at the Centre to intervene and direct the state government to step back from its confrontationist attitude and ensure the protection of the Constitutional right of Priyanka and her supporters.
Priyanka, the Congress General Secretary in Uttar Pradesh (East), was on Friday detained and stopped from going to Sonbhadra, where 10 tribals were shot dead earlier in the week for refusing to vacate their own land.
Terming the UP government’s actions as arbitrary and repressive, Amarinder questioned the rationale behind detaining Priyanka and preventing her from performing her democratic duties.
Citing reports suggesting that the administration had subsequently even cut the power at the guest house where Priyanka was detained, the Chief Minister said the right to peaceful protest was fundamental to the Constitutional which the UP government was trying to erode completely through its authoritarian acts.
No state government can be allowed to suppress the fundamental rights of any individual in the Indian democratic polity, he asserted.