BHOPAL: A major political controversy erupted in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday, with the opposition Congress alleging that three of its state IT cell workers have been illegally detained by MP Police’s cyber cell sleuths in Bhopal for allegedly circulating a controversial letter on social media, purportedly linked to former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje.
“For the past 27 hours, MP Cyber Police, Bhopal has been holding three workers of MP Congress IT Cell in custody without any valid reason. I’m surprised and disappointed by the MP Police’s action. The so-called tweet of Vasundhara Raje, which millions of people have seen and shared, has been in public circulation among lakhs of people from April 15-16."
"The detention of our workers isn’t justified. If they are not released, then our advocate will take action. We will challenge the illegal arrest and procedure before the Chief Justice of MP High Court. Detaining MP Congress workers in the name of Rajasthan Police is objectionable,” Congress’s Rajya Sabha member and Supreme Court advocate Vivek Tankha mentioned in a series of posts on X on Tuesday.
The MP Police’s cyber cell higher-ups, however, denied any detention of MP Congress workers in the matter.
Bhopal district police officials also remained tight-lipped about the alleged detention or arrest of the Congress IT cell workers or any action by Rajasthan Police.
Speaking on the issue, MP Congress chief Jitu Patwari criticised the alleged arrests. “This issue has been circulating for days and people across the country are discussing it. These are questions being raised in the public domain,” Patwari said in Bhopal.
Responding to the allegations, state BJP media in-charge Ashish Agarwal defended the police action and accused the Congress of circulating misleading content through its social media channels.
He said a fabricated letter had been used to create confusion among the public. He also alleged that the Congress was running a “coordinated misinformation campaign” and said such actions reflected a decline in political standards.
The ‘fake’ letter, attributed to former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, was critical of the women’s quota bill defeated in the Lok Sabha recently. Raje, however, has described it as fake, saying that “The viral letter is handiwork of mischief-makers”.