New Delhi: A group of Gandhians have launched a 100-day ‘satyagraha’, demanding that the BJP hand back a six-decade old Gandhian research institution in Varanasi.
The Akhil Bharat Sarva Sewa Sangh was taken over by the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government of Uttar Pradesh in July last year, reported The Telegraph Online.
A dozen buildings in its premises were thereafter demolished with bulldozers.
“The Varanasi administration took over the Sewa Sangh forcibly on July 22 last year and arrested us. We proved before them with the help of documents that the institution was started by JP (Jaya Prakash Narayan) with the help of Vinoba Bhave and Lal Bahadur Shastri and approved by Rajendra Prasad, then the President of India,” Ram Dhiraj, a member of the Sewa Sangh, said at the protest site in Rajghat, Varanasi, reported The Telegraph Online.
The Gandhians of the Sewa Sangh say that it had a land deal with the railways and the matter is presently in court.
“Although we had all the (land ownership) papers, the government forced us out of the compound with the help of the police,” said Surya Narayan Nath, convener of the Odisha branch of the Rashtriya Yuva Sangathan, a Gandhian body, said while addressing the protesters.
