Delhi Riots: President Ram Nath Kovind Must Immediately Call For Removal Of Home Minister Amit Shah, Says Sonia Gandhi

A Congress delegation led by interim party chief Sonia Gandhi submitted a memorandum on Delhi riots to President Ram Nath Kovind on Thursday. After meeting the President, Gandhi said that he must call for immediate removal of Union Home Minister Amit Shah over his failure to control the violence in North-East Delhi. “We call upon you (President) to ensure that life, liberty, & property of citizens are preserved,” Gandhi said after submitted the memorandum. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh termed the violence as ‘matter of national shame.’ The attack is in continuation of what the Congress has been saying since the emergency meeting of its highest decision-making body CWC in New Delhi.

In the memorandum, the Congress questioned the way authorities both at the Centre and state level reacted even as Delhi was burning. “Where was the Home Minister and what was he preoccupied with since last Sunday that he was unable, apparently, to give his attention to these grave events? For that matter, the Delhi Chief Minister, and the newly elected Delhi Government was also completely missing from the scene,” the Congress asked.

“There is no option left but to demand the immediate sacking of the Home Minister, who has utterly and abjectly failed in the performance of his primary and principal duties,” the Congress said in the memorandum to the President.

“The situation is so grim that the Delhi High Court has had to step in (on February 26th, 2020) and remind the Home Ministry and the Police of their principal duty to act against instigators, the rioters and those engaging in the acts of targeted violence. This is a shameful indictment of the Central Government, the Home Ministry and the Home Minister himself,” the Congress further said.

Meanwhile, the death count in the Delhi violence rose to 34 on Thursday with two more bodies being found inside a drain in Gokulpuri (Gokalpuri) area of North East Delhi while three more deaths were reported at Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) Hospital. The two bodies were discovered a day after an Intelligence Bureau staffer was found dead in a drain in Chand Bagh.

Meanwhile, Delhi remained on edge Thursday morning with security forces on alert in violence-affected areas. Delhi Police conducted a flag march in Maujpur on Thursday morning with heavy deployement in Jaffrabad, Seelampur and Babarpur. Delhi Special Commissioner of Police SN Srivastava took stock of the situation on Wednesday night.

(With agency inputs)