Former chief minister Harish Rawat has said that the defamation case filed on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is an assault on him by the ruling dispensation and an attempt to murder him politically. Addressing the media at the headquarters of the Uttarakhand Congress here on Friday, the senior Congress leader and member of Congress Working Committee (CWC) said that the Surat episode is the climax of the mindset which calls for making the country free from opposition.

He said that the Prime Minister, BJP and RSS leaders have made all sorts of comments about former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Rawat claimed that the case on Rahul Gandhi is an outcome of the questions being asked by him on the money laundering cases of Gautam Adani. He said that the workers of the Congress party are standing firmly with Rahul Gandhi on the issue. The former Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Pritam Singh said that democracy is under attack in the country.

Questioning the celebrations done by the Pushkar Singh Dhami government on completion of one year in office, Singh said that in the last six years of rule of the BJP in the State the government has proved to be a failure in every sphere. He said that in the run up to the Assembly elections in 2022, the BJP had promised that it would provide employment to the youngsters but instead of fulfilling its promises the unemployed were assaulted by police for demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe in a series of recruitment test paper leak cases. He said that the situation of law and order is pathetic in the State and the Ankita Bhandari murder case has shown a mirror to the State government.

Singh said that the government has failed to reveal the identity of the VIP allegedly involved in the crime. The government is also ignoring the consistent demands of Congress party and general public for a CBI probe in the case. Former cabinet minister Hira Singh Bisht said that the BJP should learn political decency from the Congress governments. He said that corruption is at its peak in Uttarakhand. The vice president (Organisation) Mathura Dutt Joshi, president of youth Congress Sumittar Bhullar and chief spokesperson of Uttarakhand Congress Garima Dasauni were also present on the occasion.