Setting the tone for the rally, party spokesman Jairam Ramesh accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of “masterminding a conspiracy to implicate” Congress leadership in the AgustaWestland case.
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A combative Sonia Gandhi on Friday hit out at the Modi government, saying it should “not try to frighten” the Congress. Addressing the crowd of Congress supporters in the presence of other high profile Congress leaders, she attacked the BJP on several fronts.
Added Congress spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala: “Instead of relying on media leaks, insinuations, innuendos and falsehood, the BJP government should conclude the inquiry (against AgustaWestland) and give the harshest punishment to those found guilty”.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had earlier said Kejriwal was trying to “deflect attention” at a time when the debate over alleged kickbacks in the supply of 12 choppers to the Indian Air Force in the UPA regime has cornered the Congress party. We are used to waging struggle and we have faced many challenges in the past.
Amid incessant shouting of “Sonia Gandhi Zindabad!”, she said the way the Modi government “is betraying the mandate of people, it appears their days are over”.
Stepping up his attack on PM Modi over his alleged fake degree, Kejriwal further claimed that there were no records to prove that Modi had taken his B.A. from Delhi University. They courted arrest and were released after a while.
“A strong message should go from here and it must be heard not only by those in from Raisina Hill but those also in Nagpur, on whose directions the (Narendra) Modi government is functioning”, she thundered. People have tried to weaken the party.
Parrikar had said former Air chief S P Tyagi and Gautam Khaitan are “small people” who “simply washed their hands in a flowing ganga (of corruption)” and that the government will “find out where the river was going”.
He described the toppling of the state governments in Uttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh and the alleged targeting of students in universities as failures of governance and attacks on democracy.
Former PM Manmohan Singh and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi too were taken into custody during the “Save Democracy” rally.
“What has the central government done in the last two years?” Arvind Kejriwal stated that “the Prime Minister does not have enough courage to arrest Sonia Gandhi”.
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As the Congress took to the streets, the BJP staged its own protest against the Opposition party on the Parliament premises on the AgustaWestland issue.
