Rahul Gandhi's disqualification: Congress says it will launch 'Jan-Andolan' across country

New Delhi: The Congress on Friday announced a nationwide agitation against Rahul Gandhi's disqualification, alleging that the government has acted with lightning speed to "gag" him, and called for taking forward opposition unity in a systematic manner.

Soon after Gandhi's disqualification by the Lok Sabha Secretariat, the Congress leadership got into a huddle at the party headquarters and deliberated on the way forward.

Top Congress leaders, including former AICC chief Sonia Gandhi, party president Mallikarjun Kharge, general secretaries Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, K C Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh, Rajiv Shukla and Tariq Anwar, and senior leaders P Chidambaram, Anand Sharma, Ambika Soni, Mukul Wasnik, Salman Khurshid and Pawan Kumar Bansal, among others, attended the meeting where the party decided to take this forward into a "Jan Andolan".

Congress general secretary Ramesh said, "We will go all over country as Rahul Gandhi was deliberately disqualified for raising his voice against the Modi government on the Adani issue, on the government's foreign policy and the clean chit given to China for incursions at the border." Ramesh said the BJP is rattled with the success of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, which, he said, became a movement.

The Congress leadership has welcomed the statements of support of all opposition leaders, he said and asserted that "we should now take the issue of opposition unity forward in a systematic way".

It was noted today that many opposition parties have condemned the action taken unilaterally with such lightning speed to disqualify Rahul Gandhi, he said.

"Yes, there was a consensus that we should now take the job of building opposition unity in a systematic way. Everyday Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge has been meeting floor leaders of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. So we are coordinating in Parliament and now coordination has to be outside Parliament," he said.

"It is also heartening to note that parties which were not part of this floor coordination have now issued public statements condemning this action of disqualification of Rahul Gandhi," Ramesh said, adding that the Congress welcomes the statement of support of all opposition leaders.

The Congress' state units and frontal organisations will launch different programmes across the country and they will begin from Monday with a countrywide agitation, he said.

"We will go all over the country saying that Rahul Gandhi has been deliberately disqualified, as he has been raising his voice against the Modi government on various issue including demonetisation, GST, foreign policy, and government's intentions and policies," Ramesh said.