STATEMENT OF SHRI K.C.VENUGOPAL, GENERAL SECRETARY, AICC 24 December, 2020 In the most undemocratic, unfortunate, high handed and brazen manner today the Police under the instruction of Home Minister Shri Amit Shah and the PM Shri Narendra Modi, detained and arrested senior Congress leaders including Working Committee Mem- bers and MPs. This happened when the delegation led by Shri and leaders of the party in & was to meet Hon’ble President of India and handover around 2 crore signatures from farmers, farm labourers and manual labourers urging the intervention of the President to ensure the repeal of the anti-farmer, anti-people laws. Even as the leaders gathered peacefully barring the three leaders, who would have proceed- ed to Rashtrapati Bhawan, all senior leaders and party functionaries were detained and tak- en in police custody. The three-member delegation led by Shri Rahul Gandhi, submitted the memorandum with around two crore signatures to Hon’ble President demanding his urgent intervention. Shri Rahul Gandhi later speaking to the media said, “I want to tell the PM that these farm- ers are not going to go back home until these farm laws are repealed. Opposition parties stand with farmers and labourers". Reacting on arrest and detention of Congress leaders Shri Gandhi slammed Modi Govern- ment saying, “It is an assault on the idea of India. The government is stopping our MPs from moving out of our office... There is no democracy in India, it is only in imagination, not in reality”. Shri Rahul Gandhi insisted on convening a joint session of parliament and repealing the anti-farmer legislations. Those arrested and detained included, Smt. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Shri K.C. Venugopal, Shri , Shri Ajay Maken, Shri , Shri , Kumari Selja, Shri Randeep Singh Surjewala, Shri H.K. Patil, Shri Pawan Kumar Bansal, Shri Vivek Bansal, Shri Rajeev Satav, Shri Kuljit Singh Nagra, Dr. Chella Kumar, Shri Bhakta Charan Das, Shri Devender Yadav, Shri Manish Chatrath, Shri Deepender Singh Hooda, Shri , Shri. Sunil Jakhar, Shri Govind Singh Dotasara, Shri N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, Shri T.N. Prathapan, Shri , Shri Raj Mohan Unnithan, Shri Syed Nasir Hussain, Shri Pradeep Tamta, Shri Jasbir Singh Gill, Shri Santoksh Choudhary, Dr. Amar Singh, Smt. , Dr. K. Jayakumar, Ms. Selvi Jothi Mani, Ms Sushmita Dev, Shri Anil Chowdhury, Shri Srinivas B.V., Shri Neeraj Kundan and many others. They all were later released.