Delhi Police use water cannons to disperse protesting Cong workers
Darpan News Desk IANS, 21 Jul, 2022 12:31 PM
New Delhi, July 21 (IANS) Hundreds of Congress workers were staging protests at different locations in the national capital over their party's interim President Sonia Gandhi being summoned by the Enforcement Directorate on Thursday.
Outside the party headquarters at 24, Akbar Road, the Delhi Police used water cannons to disperse the protesters who were trying to cross the barricades placed by the police.
Former Union Minister P. Chidambaram said his party is protesting the ED summons to Sonia Gandhi. "The AJL-Young India transaction is recorded in the books of account, the returns filed by the two companies and in the Income Tax returns. All that the ED wants to know can be found in the records," he said.
He further said the Income Tax case is pending before SC. "ED is not higher than the SC. What is that the ED wants to 'investigate' that will not be examined by the SC? ED is overreaching the SC and trying to intimidate the Congress party. The Congress party will not bow down to the intimidation," Chidambaram said.
The Congress party workers were seen pushing the barricades.
Meanwhile, as a preventive action, the police detained several party leaders including Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, former Union Minister P. Chidambaram, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Sachin Pilot, Ajay Maken, Deependra Hooda, IYC president B. Srinivas among several others.
The party leaders alleged that the police were not allowing them to even protest against the government and are continuously harassing them.
The detained party leaders were taken to Utsav Sadan in Kingsway Camp police lines.
The Congress is witnessing internal bickering on the issue of security breach of the Prime Minister and Congress MP from Punjab Manish Tewari has termed the incidence as most unfortunate and said the matter should be probed by a sitting High Court Judge.
Addressing a gathering in Tanda in Hoshiarpur district after laying the foundation stone of development work, the Chief Minister said there was no threat to the life of the Prime Minister but he cancelled his programme on Wednesday because of the thin presence of people at the BJP's rally.
High drama was witnessed on Thursday after 125 of 179 international passengers, who arrived at Sri Guru Ram Das Jee International Airport Rajasansi, near here, from Italy, in an Air India flight tested positive on arrival. The Covid passengers were asked to quarantine in local hospital as per the guidelines of the government.
On Wednesday, The Prime Minister's rally in Ferozepur had to be cancelled due to a security lapse after some protesters blocked a route and forced his convoy to spend about 20 minutes on a flyover. The Prime Minister was enroute the National Martyrs Memorial at Hussainiwala when the incident happened.
Although the department has all infrastructural needs in place to deal with the large number of cases expected in case of the third wave becoming a reality, he also appealed to the people to get themselves fully vaccinated against the virus as it is the most potent tool to avoid Covid-19.
Regretting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had to cancel his scheduled visit to Ferozepur midway, Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi said on Wednesday that there was no security lapse that led to the cancellation of the Prime Ministers visit to the bordering town.
