The Assam Police in India have registered a criminal complaint against leaders of the country’s largest opposition party, the Indian National Congress (INC). The charges include damaging public property and assaulting police personnel during the party’s ongoing Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra campaign, according to reports from the JURIST.
The state’s Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, who belongs to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), informed via X (formerly Twitter) that the complaint was filed against former INC president Rahul Gandhi, General Secretary KC Venugopal, and head of the student wing, Kanhaiya Kumar, among others. They stand accused of engaging in “wanton acts of violence, provocation, damage to public property and assault on police personnel”. These actions are deemed to be in violation of Section 3 of the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act.
Gandhi responded to the accusations by accusing Sarma of being the most corrupt Chief Minister in the country and refuting the notion that he could be intimidated by the charges, as detailed in a tweet from his account.
Gyanendra Pratap Singh, the Director-General of Police in Assam, provided more information about the incident. He stated that the route used by the INC in a road event on January 23 deviated from the approved path, leading to a confrontation with the Assam Police and subsequent injuries to both police officers and the public. This was documented in one of his tweets.
The Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra campaign, led by Gandhi, is a 6,700-kilometer march across India from Manipur to Mumbai. The campaign is aimed at addressing social, political, and economic injustices in the country since January 14 and has become a focus for justice and combating divisive ideologies.
Earlier, on January 18, Indian authorities had filed a complaint against the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra campaign because of its alleged deviation from the authorized path through Jorhat, Assam, as reported by the JURIST. On that same day, the INC issued a show-cause notice to spokesperson Alok Sharma over his “unauthorized, baseless and defamatory” remarks against the former president of Madhya Pradesh, Kamal Nath.