Guwahati:
Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani has been released on bail by an Assam court in a case over tweets about Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The court had reserved its injunction on the bail application yesterday.
Mevani was arrested from Gujarat’s Palanpur on Thursday by a team of Assam police after a local BJP leader from Kokrajhar in Assam filed a complaint against him. Mevani – an archcritic of Prime Minister Modi – has called his arrest “vendetta politics by the PMO (the Prime Minister’s Office)”.
“It’s a conspiracy of the BJP and the RSS. They’ve done this to tarnish my image. They’ve done this systematically. They’ve done it to Rohit Vemula, they’ve done it to Chandrasekhar Azad, now they’re targeting me,” said Mevani. told reporters today.
The 41-year-old has been charged with criminal conspiracy, violation related to the place of worship, outrage at religious feelings and provocation that could lead to violation of the peace.
In his complaint, BJP leader Arup Kumar Dey claimed that Mr Mevani’s tweets “will likely incite a section of the masses who belong to a particular community”.
In an interview with DailyExpertNews, Mr Dey said Mr Mevani is “trying to divide people by his posts and always speaks negatively of Prime Minister Modi”.
“We are lucky to have Modi ji as our Prime Minister and Mevani is trying to link his name to the recent (incidents of) violence. Is Prime Minister Modi responsible for that? He says Godse is Prime Minister Modi’s God, what evidence does he have ?” he told DailyExpertNews.
Congress has claimed that the arrest was made within 24 hours of the complaint in view of the forthcoming parliamentary elections in Gujarat, a state the BJP has ruled since 1995.
“Modi ji, you can try to crush dissent by abusing the state apparatus. But you can never lock up the truth,” Congressional Rahul Gandhi tweeted.
Mevani, an independent MLA from Banaskantha’s Vadgam seat, had said he would run as a congressional candidate in the next election.