: Terming the detention of Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi in Delhi as “entirely unprecedented”, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said that the developments were “ominous signs for democracy” in the country.
Mr. Yechury, who was in the city on Wednesday to deliver the Hashim Abdul Halim Memorial Lecture (Mr. Halim was the Speaker of the State Assembly during the Left Front government), also said: “It is unfortunate that a former serviceman had to commit suicide. If one gets detained because he tried to meet the former serviceman’s family members, then it is an ominous sign for democracy.”
‘Failed promises’He criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government at the Centre for “failing to keep its promises for the former servicemen” and said that the suicide was a “reflection of the Centre’s failure to keep its promises to former servicemen, whether one-rank-one-pension or other issues.”
Mr. Gandhi was detained earlier in the day at a hospital in Delhi by the officials of the Mandir Marg police station when he tried to meet the family member of a former serviceman Ram Kishan Grewal, who allegedly committed suicide on Tuesday night.
