Hours after party general secretary, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was taken into custody when she tried to meet the family members of the persons killed in Sonbhadra district, Congress on Friday called a nation-wide protest against her arrest.
In a letter to all PCC chiefs, CLP leaders, AICC general secretaries- in charge, AICC secretaries, heads of departments and frontal organisations, Congress organisational general secretary KC Venugopal asked to hold dharna and demonstrations in all states.
“It has been decided that state wide dharna, demonstration may be organised in all states to register protest against the arrest of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and atrocities against the common man by the BJP government. You are requested to ensure maximum participate in the dharna, demonstrations”, he said.
Earlier in the day Priyanka was taken into custody by the Uttar Pradesh police in Varanasi’s Narayanpur, neighbouring the Mirzapur border, where she was stopped on her way to Sonbhadra to meet the relatives of persons killed in the recent violence.
Calling the arrest was an arbitrary use of power by the state government, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the ‘illegal arrest of Priyanka in Sonbhadra, UP, is disturbing’.
“This arbitrary application of power, to prevent her from meeting families of the 10 Adivasi farmers brutally gunned down for refusing to vacate their own land, reveals the BJP Government’s increasing insecurity in Uttar Pradesh”, he tweeted.
The Congress general secretary, who is in-charge of Eastern Uttar Pradesh, where the incident took place, was detained after she sat in dharna when the police stopped her from proceeding to Sonbhadra.
Priyanka said that she wanted to meet the family of the victims peacefully and added, “I want to see the orders under which I have been stopped to meet them”.
On Wednesday, 10 people from Gonda community were killed during a firing which took place over a property dispute at the Umbha village of the Ghorawal area of the Sonbhadra district in Uttar Pradesh.
The police have arrested gram pradhan Yaghya Dutt Bhuriya, his close relatives and 27 others in the case. (UNI)
