‘Cong stands by you’: Priyanka Gandhi meets jailed UP anti-CAA protesters’ kin

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday visited Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav parliamentary constituency Azamgarh and met family members of jailed anti-CAA protesters, asserting that raising voice in a democracy was not a crime.

Accusing the BJP governments at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh of trying to destroy the Constitution, she dubbed both governments as “anti-poor and anti-people”.

Addressing people at Bilhariaganj locality here from the rooftop of her SUV, Priyanka Gandhi said, “Whatever happened with you was wrong, was an injustice. All of us will stand against the injustice. The government which is at the Centre, and the one which is in UP, is anti-people and anti-poor, and is working to destroy the Constitution.

“If you and we do not save it, the Constitution will be destroyed,” she cautioned the people.

“You have seen the BJP government in Uttarakhand said that reservation is not a constitutional right,” she said, alleging that the state government was talking of destroying the Constitution.

“You all have to stand up because all the laws which they are planning to bring in are not against one community, but against the entire Constitution,” she said amid slogan shouting by the crowd.

Asserting that the Congress party will stand with peaceful protesters, the party general secretary said, “I heard the women folk. I had gone to Bijnor, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Lucknow and Varanasi and other places where the police and the administration committed atrocities. A report was drafted by our party and given to the NHRC.” She said she would also send names of policemen who committed atrocities in Azamgarh.

“The Congress party stands by you today, it will stand by you tomorrow, and will continue to stand by you until you get justice,” she added.

Several Muslim women had staged a protest at Maulana Jauhar Park area here last week against the amended Citizenship Act and the proposed creation of a National Register of Citizens (NRC) but were dispersed by the police.

An FIR was registered against 35 identified and over 100 unidentified people involved in the protests that day.

Of them, 20 people were arrested, police had said.

This is the Congress general secretary’s second visit to eastern UP in less than a week after her Varanasi trip on Sunday on the occasion of Ravidas Jayanti.