New Delhi: The alleged suicide of an army veteran over the OROP issue on Wednesday snowballed into a huge political showdown in the capital with Rahul Gandhi being detained twice by Delhi police amid high drama and the movement of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal restricted.
Several leaders of Congress and AAP including Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia were also held by the police even as Rahul and Kejriwal tore into Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Rahul said the Delhi police action was symbolic of “undemocratic” mentality of the Modi government while Kejriwal accused the prime minister of being guilty of “deceit” and indulging in “lies” over the One Rank One Pension(OROP) issue.
The Congress and AAP leaders also accused the Modi government of being responsible for the death of ex-serviceman Ram Kishan Grewal, 70 , a resident of Haryana’s Bhiwani district who ended his life yesterday by consuming poison on the lawns of a government building in Janpath. They alleged that the Delhi police was unleashed on them by resorting to unprecedented “hooliganism” in quelling their protests.
The Congress Vice President was detained at Mandir Marg and Parliament Street police stations while Kejriwal’s movement was restricted when he went to meet the grieving family members of the deceased. Rahul was later taken to Tilak Marg police station.
Twelve family members of the deceased including his son Jaswant were detained and some of them alleged that they were thrashed by police when they came out of RML hospital, where Grewal’s body was kept.
Several Congress leaders including Randeep Surjewala, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Kumari Selja were detained while police was seen dragging scores of AAP workers and many office bearers outside the Parliament Street Police station. Sisodia was kept at the police station for several hours.
The Congress and AAP leaders called the police action an assault on democracy and fundamental rights while calling the treatment meted out to the grieving family as “utterly shameful” and “unprecedented. The BJP on its part accused the Congress and AAP of playing politics over the suicide.
“A martyr’s family is arrested. This is Modi ji’s India,” Rahul told reporters outside RML Hospital.
“How can you arrest the son and father of martyr? And if you have not arrested them, then why are you not letting them go,” he said after his request for releasing Grewal’s family members was turned down.
“A new India is in the making, you have to identify it.
What is happening in India today, you have to identify it. It is a result of their mentality. It is a particular type of mentality. It is an undemocratic type of mentality.”
Tearing to Prime Minister Modi, Kejriwal asserted that Grewal’s “martyrdom will not go in vain” and emphasised on the need to take his struggle forward.
“The Prime Minister is lying to the entire country claiming that OROP has been implemented. If it was implemented then why Ram Kishan had to commit suicide? The extent of the deceit of the BJP government over the issue is unprecedented.”
Surjewala called the police action “naked goondaism by Modi Government” adding, Rahul has been arrested along with sons of Grewal.
Rahul also vent his profound anger at policemen over the detention of Grewal’s family members it “shameful” and symbolic of “undemocratic” mentality of the Modi government.