New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who had kept away from the Cockroach Janta Party's (CJP) protest against chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar last Saturday even as several INDIA bloc allies joined it, on Wednesday condemned the arrest and judicial custody of CJP leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka for allegedly breaching the prohibited Jantar Mantar area to protest a day earlier.
While there was no joint protest march by INDIA bloc leaders against CEC and SIR for the second consecutive day on Wednesday, the youth wings of Congress and some Left parties staged sporadic protests here against the denotification of Jantar Mantar as a protest site and the police lathi-charge on some Youth Congress activists during earlier protests.
"Waving the tricolour at Jantar Mantar in a peaceful protest is not a crime. Jailing youth for it is an act of cowardice. Students. Youth. Journalists. The INDIA bloc. Different banners, one cause. All protests are one: citizens demanding their constitutional rights. Jantar Mantar belongs to the people of India. We will reclaim it," Gandhi said in a social media post, without naming CJP or its jailed leaders.
On his part, CJP leader Abhijeet Dipke later thanked INDIA bloc leaders, including Gandhi and others like AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal for the show of support.
Congress circles, which have so far maintained a distance from CJP's agitations even as Gandhi continued to assert that there was "only one" protest, are now watching how the party's agitation on Friday would play out and whether its allies would join it again.
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While Youth Congress circles had expected Gandhi to join them in protesting on Parliament Street against the ban on demonstrations at Jantar Mantar, he instead made a brief appearance before the media at 10 Janpath along with some Youth Congress and NSUI activists, who said that they had been beaten up and tortured by the police during protests in previous days. Gandhi told them to keep evidence of police action and reiterated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah and the CEC would be brought to justice.