Rahul Gandhi detained amid high drama at Delhi hospital

New Delhi: Amid high drama, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia were today detained at the RML Hospital here after they tried to meet the family of an ex-serviceman who allegedly committed suicide over the OROP issue.

Vehicular movement outside the hospital was thrown out of gear as Rahul’s presence led to chaos.

The Congress Vice President was not allowed to enter the premises of the Centre-run hospital. His repeated attempts were stonewalled by the heavy posse of security personnel, drawing angry reaction from the leader who lashed out at the Modi government.

Senior police official MK Meena said they will not allow obstruction of health services.

“We will not allow any kind of politics inside hospitals in Delhi. Democracy does not mean obstruction of health services. Rahul Gandhi has been detained at the Mandir Marg police station,” he said.

Speaking to reporters, Rahul wondered whether democracy works in this fashion.Rahul was later released from Mandir Marg Police station.

Earlier, Sisodia managed to enter the hospital premises and meet the family members of the deceased, before being detained by police. Eyewitnesses said Sisodia could enter the premises as he came in a civilian car, which went undetected by the security.

A senior official of the hospital said the deceased, Ram Kishan Grewal, was “brought dead to the hospital at 1.45 AM last night”.

“His body was sent for post-mortem to Lady Hardinge at 7.30 AM in the morning today,” the official said.

Meanwhile on Twitter, #VultrePolitics was trending in the afternoon slamming the attempts of Rahul and Kejriwal to cook rotis over dead body of someone who committed suicide.

Rahul Gandhi detained for 2nd time

Rahul Gandhi was today detained for a second time by Delhi Police and taken to an undisclosed location after he tried to meet the family members of the ex-serviceman who allegedly committed suicide as high drama unfolded on streets in Lutyens’ Delhi with Congress and AAP workers staging protests.

Gandhi along with other Congress leaders, including Jyotiraditya Scindia and Ajay Maken were bundled into a police van and taken to a police station, sources said. They, however, did not disclose where the Congress leaders were taken.

Earlier in the day, Gandhi was detained at the RML Hospital when he tried to meet the family members of ex-serviceman Ram Kishan Grewal, who allegedly committed suicide last night over the One Rank-One Pension issue, and taken to Mandir Marg police station. He was detained for around 70 minutes before being released.

Rahul, Kejriwal doing politics over deaths: BJP

Hitting back, BJP today accused Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal of doing “politics over deaths” after they targeted Modi Government over suicide by an ex-serviceman, and asserted that it had fulfilled its commitment on OROP, while Congress had failed to do so.

“The suicide of ex-serviceman Ram Kishan Grewal is unfortunate and our sympathies are with his family. What is even more unfortunate is the politics over his death. As far as OROP is concerned, the government has fulfilled its commitment and ex-servicemen are benefiting from it.

“What Rahul Gandhi and Kejriwal are doing is nothing but politics over death. It seems they keep looking for doing politics wherever such deaths occur,” BJP National Secretary Shrikant Sharma said in a statement.

Hitting out at the two opposition leaders, he said they “pick and choose deaths” for their politics and cited suicide of an woman, who had earlier accused an AAP leader of sexually exploiting her, in AAP-ruled Delhi and similar deaths in Congress-ruled Karnataka and earlier in Kerala.

These leaders took no action when their party leaders and governments were in the dock, he said.

“Kejriwal is a leader who has solutions to all problems in the world except for the ones in Delhi. His MLAs have been accused of all sorts of crime from rape to keeping forged certificates but he has done nothing,” he said targeting the AAP leader.

Lashing out at the Congress Vice-President, the BJP spokesperson said, “Gandhi is a part-time non-serious politician. His party’s government always misled ex-servicemen. He should answer why it did not implement OROP.”

“At a time when country is facing threats from terrorists and there is a need to boost morale of armed forces, these leaders are harming them with their politics,” he alleged.

With inputs from PTI