Will Assam CM ask CBI to find out who caused 'false' FIR against Mevani: Chidambaram
New Delhi, Apr 30 (PTI) Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Saturday took a swipe at Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma over a court in Assam pulling up the state police for lodging a "false FIR" against Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani, asking whether the CM will entrust the CBI to find out who was the "insane person" who caused the FIR to be registered.
Granting bail to Mevani in a case related to the alleged "assault" of a woman police officer, a court in Assam's Barpeta district on Friday pulled up the state police for lodging the "false FIR".
Hearing the bail petition, Barpeta District and Sessions Judge Aparesh Chakraborty also urged the Gauhati High Court to direct the state police force to "reform itself", referring to the slew of police encounters over the last one year.
Reacting to the development, Chidambaram said the court found that no sane person could have intended to outrage the modesty of a lady police officer in the presence of two male police officers and held that the FIR had no merit.
The court found that there is no evidence to hold that Mevani was an insane person, the former Union home minister said in a series of tweets.
"If Mr Mevani was not insane and yet a false FIR was registered against him, there must be someone who was insane?" he said.
"Will the CM of Assam entrust the case to the CBI to find out who was the insane person who caused the FIR to be registered against Mr Mevani?" Chidambaram said.
Mevani was granted bail on a Personal Recognisance (PR) bond of Rs 1,000 in the case filed at the Barpeta Road police station.
He was arrested in this case on Monday for allegedly "assaulting" the woman police officer while he was being brought by a police posse from Guwahati to Kokrajhar.
Mevani, a Congress-backed Independent MLA, was picked up by a posse from the Assam Police last week from Gujarat and arrested for a purported tweet on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
After being released on bail in that case on Monday, he was rearrested in the case related to the assault of the woman police officer who was part of the police party which accompanied him to Korkrajhar, a complaint about which was registered in Barpeta.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
