Hyderabad (Telangana) [India], December 18 : A massive deployment of security personnel was reported at the Telangana Congress headquarters, Gandhi Bhavan, and at Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Bhavan in Nampally, Hyderabad, ahead of a planned protest march.
The Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) had announced a protest against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), alleging political vendetta against senior Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in connection with the National Herald case.
TPCC President and MLC Mahesh Kumar Goud, along with other senior Congress leaders, are scheduled to participate in a protest march from Gandhi Bhavan to the Telangana BJP headquarters at Nampally today.
Authorities have deployed a substantial number of police personnel at both locations to ensure law and order and prevent any untoward incidents during the march.
Meanwhile, several Opposition MPs on Wednesday protested in Parliament premises over the National Herald case. The Congress MPs held posters bearing the slogan "Satyamev Jayate; Truth prevails!".
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor also took part in a protest against the goverment doing vendetta Politics in the National Herald.
On Wednesday, Karnataka Congress leaders also staged protests near the Gandhi statue at Suvarna Soudha in Belagavi against the Central government over the National Herald case and the decision to rename the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) as VB-G Ram G.
Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah and Deputy CM DK Shivakumar also joined the Congress protest.
Meanwhile, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge alleged that the National Herald case was being pursued with "political vendetta" by the ruling government, asserting that the matter was aimed solely at harassing the Gandhi family.
Addressing the media on the issue, Kharge said there was no basis to the allegations and claimed that no First Information Report (FIR) had been registered in the case.
"They are doing this for a political vendetta. This case is only to trouble the Gandhi family. There is no FIR in this case...Our slogan is 'Satyamev Jayate', and we welcome the judgment in the case," Kharge said.
On Tuesday, the Delhi court declined to take cognisance of the Enforcement Directorate's prosecution complaint in the National Herald money-laundering case, holding that proceedings under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) are not maintainable in the absence of an FIR for the scheduled (predicate) offence.
The court stated that the ED's complaint against Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Sam Pitroda, Suman Dubey, Young Indian, Dotex Merchandise Pvt Ltd and others was based on a private complaint filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy and the summoning order passed on it in 2014, and not on any FIR. It held that such a complaint cannot substitute the statutory requirement of an FIR under the PMLA framework.