Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Tuesday he had instructed the police to register a case against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for allegedly “provoking the crowd” that was captured in dramatic television footage facing off with security personnel amid spiralling tensions surrounding a politically charged rally.
He condemned what he called “unruly behaviour” by the Congress that “resulted in a massive traffic jam in Guwahati”. Replying to a video posted on X (formerly Twitter) by Youth Congress President Srinivas BV that captured a group of people trying to remove barricades, Sarma said such “Naxalite tactics are completely alien to our culture”.
Earlier in the day, Gandhi sharpened his attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central and Assam governments, accusing them of posing roadblocks to his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra that is criss-crossing India’s northeastern states.
He alleged that authorities stopped his planned visit to a university in Meghalaya, according to news agency ANI. Gandhi addressed a crowd from the roof of his vehicle on the Assam-Meghalaya border, exhorting Congress workers to understand their strength and warning students that they are being turned into “slaves” — a frontal attack on the BJP.
Initially, there was some confusion about the location of the university where Gandhi was to address the students. Congress leader Aaron Mathew posted on X that Assam Chief Minister Biswa had cancelled Gandhi’s visit to the university but its students “gathered to listen their hope and leader Rahul Gandhi”.
As tensions escalated, thousands of Congress workers faced off with the Assam Police and removed security barricades. The Congress camp alleged that they were denied entry into the city of Guwahati on flimsy grounds.
The Assam government had allowed the Congress’s flagship “Bharat Jodo Yatra” on a highway circling the city, but did not allow the rally to enter the inner arterial roads fearing traffic snarls on a weekday.