BENGALURU: Congress leaders of the state, including Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, staged a silent protest at the city’s Freedom Park on Wednesday against the disqualification of party leader Rahul Gandhi as an MP and what they called “a conspiracy by the BJP-led Centre to finish off his political career”.
The agitating Congress leaders wore a black tape covering their mouth as a mark of protest. Apart from the CM and DyCM, ministers KH Muniyappa, Dr G Parameshwara, HC Mahadevappa, Ramalinga Reddy and NS Boseraju, and KPCC working president Saleem Ahmed, AICC general secretary Randeep Surjewala among other Congress leaders took part in the protest.
Holding placards that read “let the truth be loud and clear, the truth cannot be hidden by trickery”, the Congress leaders called the BJP government at the Centre as undemocratic. Surjewala said Rahul Gandhi started the fight from Kolar seeking answers from the Modi government on the bank frauds between 2017 and 2022. “Let us ask why loans worth Rs 10 lakh crore have been waived off by the Modi government in five years. Why do top 50 willful bank defaulters owe the banks Rs 92,570 crore?” Surjewala asked. Let every court and citizen also seek answers as to when the defaulter will be brought to justice and public money recovered, he added.
The Gujarat High Court on Friday upheld a session court’s order on Rahul Gandhi and rejected his plea to give a stay on his conviction in the defamation case. Shivakumar accused the BJP and RSS of indulging in “vindictive politics” with a conspiracy against the Nehru-Gandhi family and wishing to put an end to Rahul’s political career. “They could not stomach the overwhelming response and the support Rahul got for his Bharat Jodo Yatra from Kanniyakumari to Kashmir. He will never stop his mission and let us remove the BJP government in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls,” he said.
Rahul had made a remark on the ‘Modi surname’ at a public rally in Kolar in the run up to 2019 Lok Sabha polls following which a Gujarat court convicted him. The Gujarat HC upheld this and rejected his plea to give a stay following which the Congress staged protests across the country. It may be noted here that Rahul had returned to Kolar in April, 2023 and took part in a public rally.