BJP leader LK Advani called up PM Manmohan Singh to lodge a strong protest over the treatment meted out to Leaders of Opposition Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley at Jammu airport.
Advani told the PM that Swaraj and Jaitley, who went to Jammu to join the party’s Ekta Yatra, were prohibited from coming out of the airport, leading to a stand-off.
Advani said the two leaders — on being told by authorities that they would have to leave Jammu as prohibitory orders under Section 144 CrPC were in force — responded saying they would rather be arrested than be sent back to Delhi.
BJP general secretary Ravi Shankar Prasad announced that former party chief Rajnath Singh would sit on a fast at Rajghat from Monday night till January 26 to protest the government’s crackdown on the tricolour-hoisting at Lal Chowk.
“You cannot invoke Section 144 Cr P C to extern somebody from a place. That section is only for a prohibitory order,” said Prasad, adding that BJP functionaries would sit on dharna at all district quarters.
“We have urged the President to intervene as two of our senior leaders are being stopped at Jammu,” Singh said after his call to the President. “I requested her to tell the Centre to permit the flag-hoisting.”
{{/usCountry}}“We have urged the President to intervene as two of our senior leaders are being stopped at Jammu,” Singh said after his call to the President. “I requested her to tell the Centre to permit the flag-hoisting.”
{{/usCountry}}BJP president Nitin Gadkari, who is on a five-day visit to China, condemned the Centre’s attempt to stop his party’s Ekta Yatra as “repressive” and warned that such an approach would lead to increase in terrorism in J&K. Prasad also said the Centre and the Congress were behind the stopping of leaders at the airport.