JAGDALPUR: Chhattisgarh minister T S Singh Deo on Thursday filed a police complaint here against BJP leader Kapil Mishra and two others for allegedly spreading through their tweets "false and malicious" information against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his visit to Nepal.
The minister submitted the application at City Kotwali police station in Jagdalpur town, the headquarter of state's Bastar district, seeking action against Mishra, Delhi BJP spokesperson Harish Khurana and retired Major Surendra Poonia, officials said.
"The police would take the needful legal action after inquiring into the content of the application," Inspector General of Police (Bastar range) Sundarraj P told PTI.
Health and Family Welfare Minister Singh Deo, who is on a three-day visit to Bastar division since Wednesday, reached the police station accompanied by state Youth Congress president Purnchandra Padhi and Bastar district unit party leaders to file the complaint on Thursday.
"I have filed an FIR against @KapilMishra_IND, @MajorPoonia & @HarishKhuranna at Jagdalpur police station for deliberately spreading misinformation against Shri @RahulGandhi, a desperate attempt with malicious intent to tarnish his image. The fraudsters must pay the price," the minister tweeted.
In his complaint, Singh Deo claimed that the aforesaid Twitter handles have been uniformly posting "utterly false and malicious posts" alleging that Gandhi was attending a party in a pub in Nepal and there he had a secret meeting with the Chinese Ambassador to Nepal.
These social media posts are absolutely false and baseless and are being spread as a part of consorted campaign to consistently malign and tarnish the image of Congress party in general and Gandhi in particular, in the minds of the people apparently to propagate the hateful and divisive ideology of a particular political party, the complaint said.
Gandhi has in fact been on a private visit to Nepal and has been attending some functions where he has been photographed with a local acquaintance, who has falsely been shown as Chinese women in the tweets, whereas the lady is a Nepali acquaintance of Gandhi, it added.
Reacting to the minister's tweet, Kapil Mishra asked why Gandhi went to such a place which tarnished his image.
"Why FIR against me? (How) the video of the place where Rahul Gandhi went by himself has tarnished his image? Why did he go to such a place...? If the court asks the details of Gandhi's passport to be made public. Will you be able to make it public?..." Mishra said in a tweet posted in Hindi.