Hundreds of Congress leaders and workers, trying to march to the Enforcement Directorate to stage a ‘satyagrah’ against alleged harassment of party president Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, were taken into custody and later released in the evening. Interestingly, to avert any law and order problem arising out of the demonstration, the local administrations across the state had put senior leaders, including Congress Legislative Party leader Aradhana Mishra `Mona’, under house arrest since Sunday night. They prevented the movement of the Congress leaders throughout the day on Monday.
Prominent amongst those taken into custody while trying to take out ‘satyagrah march’ included former UP Congress president Ajay Kumar Lallu, former MLAs Shyam Kishore Shukla, Akhilesh Pratap Singh, and senior leaders Virendra Madan, Amarnath Agarwal, Siddharth Priya Srivastava, Ved Prakash Tripathi, Mukesh Singh Chauhan and others.
Lallu later tweeted a video and wrote, “Delhi Police’s dictatorship is at its peak in the course of Rahul Gandhi’s visit to the ED office. The attempt to suppress the opposition on the basis of power is the desperation of the Modi government. Whatever the outcome, we will not back down from the struggle.”
Meanwhile in Delhi, the ED questioned Rahul Gandhi in connection with the investigation of a money laundering case related to the National Herald newspaper. He reached the agency’s headquarters in Delhi along with party leaders and supporters. After an interrogation of about two-and- half hours, Rahul was allowed to leave the ED headquarters for lunch at around 2:10 pm, officials said.