BENGALURU: Escalating the issue of an anti-CAA play staged at a school in Bidar, senior Congress leaders, including former CM Siddaramaiah and KPCC president Dinesh Gundu Rao, on Saturday protested against the alleged misuse of sedition laws to harass those protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The leaders were taken into custody as they were marching towards the Chief Minister’s Office.
The rally that started near Mahatma Gandhi statue on Race Course Road was stopped mid-way by the police who detained the leaders and took them away. The protest march, which the Congress leader claimed was attended by over 1,500 party workers, threw traffic out of gear on Race Course Road.
Addressing the protesters, Siddaramaiah accused the BJP government of misusing the sedition laws against those speaking up against the government and BJP leaders. Sedition laws have been invoked against Congress leader U T Khader, a Mysore University student and the headmistress and student’s parent of a Bidar school, he said.
“How can staging a school play amount to sedition? The police have harassed 90 students of the school,” he said. The Congress leaders accused the police of being partisan and targeting Congressmen, while not taking action against BJP leaders Anantkumar Hegde, Somashekar Reddy, M P Renukacharya and others for their inflammatory speeches.