What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
Three Congress workers were on Friday suspended from the party after they vandalized the booth of a vegetable vendor after he did not pay donation for the grand old party’s 3,500 km Bharat Jodo Yatra.
The incident took place in Kollam, where the party leaders had taken a day’s halt after walking 150 km in first eight days.
The suspensions came about soon after the video went viral, in which three Congress workers were seen allegedly threatening and harassing a vegetable vendor on September 15, for not paying Rs 2,000 as donation for the party’s Bharat Jodo Yatra.
The vegetable vendor has been identified as S Fawaz, and a case has been filed against three persons on the basis of his police complaint.
Terming the incident as “unacceptable”, Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president K Sudhakaran, on Friday, said: “Three party workers involved in an unacceptable incident in Kollam have been suspended with immediate effect. They do not represent our ideology and such behaviour is inexcusable. The party is crowd funding small donations voluntarily unlike others who get corporate donations.”
Endorsing Kerala Congress chief’s views, Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh also took to Twitter and wrote, “Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee has been doing crowd funding for years. Their politics runs on small donations at the grassroots. But this should not have happened. These three were clearly fringe elements and exemplary action has been taken immediately by the PCC President.”
Taking a pot shot at the ruling BJP, Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera, who is also participating in the padyatra, said, “If action were to be taken for taking donations through opaque electoral bonds, the entire BJP will have to be suspended.”
However, Union Minister and BJP leader Smriti Irani slammed the Congress over the actions of the grand old party workers.
In a tweet in Hindi, she said, “The robbers of the country are now robbing the vegetable sellers.”
Responding to Irani’s jibe, Khera, targeting her on her daughter’s association with Silly Souls Restaurant and Bar ownership, said, “Oh you silly soul, please respond to the allegation of your office seeking Rs 25 lakh in bribe from an Olympian.”
He also attached a news report in his tweets.
Meanwhile, the Congress resumed the Bharat Jodo Yatra, a 150-day-long foot march from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, after a day’s rest from Polayathodu in Kollam district of Kerala. Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, General Secretaries KC Venugopal, Digvijaya Singh and others resumed the yatra during the day.
On their route in Kerala, the people greeted the Congress leaders while standing along the roadside.
The yatra began on September 7 from Tamil Nadu’s Kanyakumari. It entered Kerala on September 10. The padyatra will enter Karnataka on September 30.
