Shankar Raj / Bengaluru
After war of words between the Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadara and UP over buses for migrants, Karnataka took the battle further when an FIR was filed against Congress chief Sonia Gandhi based on a complaint by an advocate in Shivamogga district, the home district of CM B S Yediyurappa.
The complaint was based on a tweet by Congress chief over the use of PM-CARES fund. The tweet read: “If the PM-CARES Fund is not being used for transport of migrants, repatriation of Indians from abroad or providing a financial stimulus, what is it being used for.”
But advocate KV Praveen, allegedly a BJP worker, saw the tweet as casting aspersions on the use of the PM-CARES Fund. He also submitted hardcopies of tweets with the complaint. “An FIR has been registered against Gandhi under IPC Sections 153 and 505(1)(B). We are probing the matter,” a cop said. The FIR was lodged at 10.30am on Wednesday.
Minutes after the FIR was registered, the Congress fumed and cried foul. Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee chief DK Shivakumar in a letter to Yediyurappa demanded immediate withdrawal of the FIR. “We hereby demand your goodself to withdraw the said FIR (on Gandhi),” said Shivakumar.
He claimed Praveen is a BJP activist. “The complainant has filed it with a political motive on false information stating Gandhi tweeted that the Prime Minister has been misusing the PM-CARES fund,” he added.
Shivakumar said Gandhi had indeed tweeted in the capacity of MP and the chief of a party. Her intention was to force Modi use the PM-CARES Fund for welfare of people. He said, “Unfortunately, it was misinterpreted by the BJP leadership. It instigated Praveen to file the complaint against Gandhi, based on false information without examining its truthfulness.”
He said Sagar police officials have misused the process of law by registering an FIR and have snubbed her right to air healthy criticism. He told the CM to “suspend the said police officer immediately. We urge you to register an FIR against the officer for misusing the process of law in the interest of justice and equity,” he demanded.
Karnataka Congress spokesperson Subhash Agarwal condemned the registration of an FIR and said “it is the role and responsibility of the opposition to question the government. Democracy will die if the opposition’s voice is muzzled.”
He also said the party had always maintained that there was no need for the PM-CARES Fund when the PM Relief Fund already existed.
Legal experts say if FIRs are filed over political comments and tweets, there would be no end. The police had clearly erred in filing a case.
Jail for helping stranded migrants shocking: Congress
New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday expressed shock over the BJP Govt in UP not allowing Congress to help the stranded migrants by stopping their buses on the border with Rajasthan but taking into custody its UP unit president Ajay Kumar Lallu and sending him to a 14-day judicial custody. “This is just not democratic but it shows how the UP Govt operates, why this ego of its CM Yogi Adityanath, why his personal satisfaction an why this vendetta politics satisfies him more than anything else instead of taking the opposition along and walking hand in hand together to help the people,” Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said at an AICC press briefing through video conference, regretting this is happening in the state she belongs to. She regretted the state president has been put behind bars, jailed as he offered to help people. Pointing out the state president comes from a very ordinary background who has seen poverty from close quarters, she condemned the state government and urged CM Adityanath to review his decision and drop the vendetta politics. “Let us try and put our political differences aside. There will be other options, another time when we can settle our political scores, but today is not the time,” Shrinate said. —Our Bureau
