40 Opp. MPs detained for protest from Parliament
Forty Opposition MPs, including those from the Congress and four others were detained on Friday and released hours later by the Delhi police for taking out a protest march from Parliament House, officials said.
Earlier in the day, they took out a protest march from Parliament House, alleging that democracy is in “danger” and demanding a JPC probe into the Adani issue.
Prominent leaders, including K.C. Venugopal, Adhir Chowdhury, K. Suresh, Manickam Tagore, Imran Pratapgarhi and Mohammed Javed were stopped by the police and detained at Vijay Chowk here for violating prohibitory orders, the Opposition said.
“Forty MPs and four others from Opposition parties had to be detained for violation of Section 144 (prohibitory orders). They were detained and taken in a bus to New Police Line in Kingsway Camp in GTB Nagar. Hours later, they were released,” a senior police officer said.
Earlier addressing the media at Vijay Chowk, several leaders, including Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, also raised the issue of Rahul Gandhi’s conviction in a 2019 criminal defamation case by a Surat court and alleged that the government was targeting the opposition with cases to suppress their voices.
After a protest inside the Parliament House complex, a host of Opposition leaders from parties such as the CPI, CPI(M), Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray), JD(U) and Aam Aadmi Party, marched to Vijay Chowk, holding placards like ‘We demand JPC’ and ‘Save LIC’ and a huge banner in front of them with ‘Democracy in Danger’ written on it.
AAP’s Sanjay Singh said Gandhi’s conviction shows that the government wants to finish off the opposition by slapping cases on them.