Rights activist Yogendra Yadav has said the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Assam government had planned peasant rights activist Akhil Gogoi’s imprisonment in order to keep him off public view during the Assembly election.
Mr. Yadav and Samajwadi Party leader Sunilam visited the jailed leader, also the president of the newly-floated Raijor Dal, at the Guwahati Medical College and Hospital on Sunday.
“It is the misfortune of this country that people who should be in jail are roaming free while a few who should be free are rotting in jails. Akhil Gogoi’s is not a criminal trial, it is a political trial planned well ahead in order to prevent him from addressing the people during the election,” Mr. Yadav told journalists the hospital.
“His trial is also the trial of India’s judiciary,” he said, adding that he extended his moral support to Mr. Gogoi who has been in jail since December 2019 for various charges including sedition and inciting violence during the movement against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
Mr. Sunilam said he was asked by Mr. Gogoi to carry a message to the people of Assam — “defeat the BJP”.
He said the Congress, leading the Mahajot, should have had the moral responsibility of letting the “people’s voice win” by not putting up candidates against the Raijor Dal and its associate regional party, Assam Jatiya Parishad.
