MADHUBANI/PATNA: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday squarely blamed the Congress for the arrest of journalist Arnab Goswami in connection with an abetment to suicide case in Maharashtra where the party is a junior partner in the ruling coalition headed by the Shiv Sena.
Addressing an election rally in north Bihar district of Madhubani, the firebrand BJP leader asserted that the arrest was made "for satisfaction of ego" an allusion to Goswami's often strident criticism of the Congress and his supposed leanings towards the saffron party.
"The Congress has always sought to throttle democracy in the country. It did so in 1975 by clamping the Emergency. Only today, a leading journalist of the country has been arrested," said Yogi without mentioning Goswami by name.
The arrest, made in connection with a two-year-old case, was "an assault on the fourth pillar of democracy", he said.
"By its deeds, the Congress is promoting anarchy in the country. It failed to do in 55 years what Prime Minister Narendra Modi has achieved in six years, simply because unlike the BJP, which considers the entire nation as its family, the Congress cares for just one parivaar," said the UP CM in an obvious reference to the Nehru-Gandhi family.
"We must not allow anybody to spread anarchy in this manner. The Congress has, strangely, been tough on its own people but soft on infiltrators," said Yogi, one of the BJP's star campaigners for assembly elections in Bihar.
Meanwhile, the arrest of Goswami, the editor-in-chief of a television news channel said to be owned by a BJP MP from Kerala, drew strong protests from the saffron party in the Bihar capital.
A large number of party workers, led by its state unit general secretary and Digha MLA Sanjiv Chaurasia, demonstrated in front of the Sadaqat Ashram, the headquarters of the Congress' state unit in Patna.
They raised slogans in protest against the arrest of the scribe and denounced the Maharashtra government for the same.
Mumbai Police, which picked up Goswami from his house in the morning, said he was arrested for allegedly abetting the suicide of a 53-year-old interior designer and his mother in 2018.
The two had killed themselves over alleged non- payment of dues by the news channel.
In May this year, Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh announced he has ordered a fresh probe in the case after a complaint by the daughter of the interior designer.