NEW DELHI: The leader of opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi had a major showdown with police on Wednesday for two hours as the cops blocked his attempt to visit violence-hit Sambhal in Uttar Pradesh. Back in Parliament, the acting Lok Sabha speaker questioned Congress leader’s wherabouts asking why was he not in Parliament.
As Rahul Gandhi, along with Priyanka Gandhi and other party leaders were stopped at Delhi-UP border, the Congress’ Mohammad Jawed raised the issue in Lok Sabha. Stopping his sentence mid-way, BJP’s Jagdambika Pal, who was on the Chair at that time in place of Om Birla, asked, “The House is in session, what is the leader of opposition doing outside? He should have been present in the House,” Pal said.
This comes as Rahul’s convoy was stopped at the Ghazipur border to go to violence hit Sambhal. Rahul said that he was ready to go alone adding that this is against the rights of the LoP and against the Constitution.
“We are trying to go to Sambhal, the police is refusing, they are not allowing us. As LoP, it is my right to go, but they are stopping me. I am ready to go alone, I am ready to go with the police, but they did not accept that too. They are saying that if we come back in a few days then they will let us go,” Rahul Gandhi said.
“This is against the rights of the LoP and against the Constitution. We just want to go to Sambhal and see what happened there, we want to meet the people. My constitutional right is not being given to me. This is the new India, this is the India to end the Constitution. This is the India to end Ambedkar’s Constitution. We will keep fighting,” he added.
Earlier on Tuesday, Sambhal district magistrate Rajendra Pensia wrote a letter to e police commissioners of Gautam Buddh Nagar and Ghaziabad and the superintendents of police of Amroha and Bulandshahr districts, urging them to stop Rahul Gandhi at the borders of their districts.
A Congress party delegation, however, slipped into Sambhal and met some families of those who died in Nov 24 violence and were about to leave the district.
The delegation included the general secretary of UP Congress Committee (UPCC) Sachin Chaudhary and its vice-president Rizwan Qureshi along with the national secretary of All India Congress Committee Pradeep Narwal and a few members of Gandhi’s team.
They also facilitated a phone call between Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and the victims’ kin. A delegation from Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind (JUH) also visited the violence-hit town and provided “financial assistance, cheques of Rs 5 lakh each, to the families of the deceased later at a local madrassa”.
At least 5 people were dead and several others, including over 20 police personnel, were injured in Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal after violent clashes erupted following a court-mandated survey of the Mughal-era Jama Masjid.
The survey was ordered following a petition filed by senior advocate Vishnu Shanker Jain, claiming that the mosque was originally a temple.