Guwahati: Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani on Friday alleged that he was arrested by the Assam police under the instruction of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“My arrest was not a simple matter. It must have been done under the instruction of political bosses at the PMO (Prime Minister’s Office),” ND TV quoted Mevani as saying.
“I am still proud of the tweet I did. In the tweet, I basically asked the Prime Minister to maintain peace and harmony as communal classes happened…As a citizen of India, I have the rights to ask this. As a lawmaker what’s our duty? It is to urge people to maintain peace, so that’s what I did,” MLA Mevani said.
Jignesh Mevani’s comments came hours after he was granted bail by a local court in Barpeta in a case of alleged assault on a woman constable of the Assam Police.
The Dalit leader was arrested in the alleged assault case on April 25 moments after he was granted bail by a court in Kokrajhar in a case over tweets on Prime Minister Modi.
Mevani alleged the ruling BJP has done a “cowardly thing” by “using a woman” to “frame a case” against him.
“They cooked up a story to frame a case by using a woman. The government is such a coward that it used a woman against me. Such a coward act it is,” he said.
The Gujrat MLA said that the ruling BJP is doing all this with an eye on the Gujarat polls, which will be held later this year.
“The timing of the case also speaks everything. There are elections coming in Gujrat, so I am being targeted,” Mevani said.
He said that the conspiracy hatched by the BJP did not go well among Dalits, among the people of Gujarat.
“They are watching it. They (BJP) will pay for it. The people have understood this ploy. The moment I was picked up in Gujrat, I knew they were planning to trap me in different cases. The targeting of an MLA from Gujarat in Assam was part of a larger conspiracy,” Mevani said.