Congress leader and an MLA from Gujarat’s Vadgam Jignesh Mevani landed in Assam’s Guwahati on Sunday ahead of appearing before a court in connection with a case registered last year for allegedly assaulting a policewoman here.
According to reports, Mevani is set to appear before a court in the Barpeta district on Monday for allegedly assaulting a policewoman in Assam when he was brought here from Gujarat last year after an FIR was filed against him for a tweet against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Having arrived in Guwahati, Jignesh Mevani told reporters, “I respect the court of law. I do not have any enmity with anyone. The government will put forward its arguments in the court and I will put forward mine.”
Speaking about the upcoming general elections, Mevani said, “The upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha general elections will be very important. Farmers and students are dying by suicide across the country due to issues like price rise and unemployment.”
Targeting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government, he said, “The government is targeting political entities like me. However, the Congress party is seeing an upturn in fortunes following the Bharat Jodo Yatra and the people’s mandate in Karnataka elections.”
“The Congress respects every religion. All opposition parties should put their differences aside and join hands to fight BJP. This will ensure good results and will help in saving the constitution. We are hoping that the Bharat Jodo Yatra will be fruitful in view of the 2024 elections,” added Jignesh Mevani.
It may be noted that the dalit leader from Gujarat, Mevani was released from jail after completing legal formalities in Assam’s Kokrajhar in April, 2022. The court had sent him to five days of police custody after he was accused of assaulting a policewoman while being taken by a police posse from Guwahati to Kokrajhar.
Jignesh Mevani had been picked up by a posse of Assam Police from Gujarat and was arrested in a case against him for a purported tweet on PM Modi where he had claimed that the Prime Minister “considered Godse as God”.
In the same tweet, he had urged PM Modi to appeal for communal harmony during his visit to Gujarat, according to the FIR filed at Kokrajhar Police Station in Assam, reported PTI.
After he was released on bail, Mevani was rearrested after being charged with assaulting a policewoman who was part of the police posse which accompanied him to Kokrajhar, according to a complaint registered against him in Barpeta.
In this case, he was booked under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 294, 323, 353 and 354 for allegedly uttering obscene words in public, voluntarily causing hurt, assaulting a public servant in the execution of duty and using criminal force on a woman intending to outrage her modesty, respectively.
