Ankita Bhandari Case: FIR Registered Against Harish Rawat Following Protest Against Dushyant Gautam's Appointment as Sikkim Governor

Dehradun, Uttarakhand: An FIR was registered against former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat along with 30 other Congress leaders in connection with the party’s protest against the appointment of Dushyant Gautam as Sikkim Governor over the Ankita Bhandari case.  

Additionally, cases have also been registered against Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Ganesh Godiyal, Harak Singh Rawat, and Pritam Singh under sections 132 and 223 of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita 2023.

This development came after Congress leaders staged a massive protest outside the main gate of Lok Bhavan in Dehradun on Thursday to oppose the appointment of former BJP Uttarakhand in-charge Dushyant Gautam as the Governor of Sikkim.

Meanwhile, Congress MP and AICC in-charge for Uttarakhand, Kumari Selja, launched a scathing attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the appointment of a leader whose name has surfaced in connection with the Ankita Bhandari case as a Governor, stating that the move demonstrates a complete disregard for democracy and justice.

Hitting out at the ruling dispensation, Kumari Selja said, "Congress was actually the first party to raise Ankita Bhandari's case, and our leaders brought it up. Her family has been pleading for justice ever since, and the Congress party has stood by them. In Uttarakhand, there was this case of Ankita Bhandari that shook the entire state and made everyone wonder how something like this could even happen. And then names that came up, and that are still coming up- there's a CBI investigation going on too, and some things have become public that include a few names. Today, the BJP government just picks one of those names and makes him the Governor."

The Congress leader further questioned the intent behind assigning constitutional roles to individuals facing public scrutiny, asserting that people do not have faith in the governance of the BJP.

"So you can see that people don't believe in democracy or justice anymore, and they certainly don't have any faith in this government, and they shouldn't. What made you feel the need to pick out people whose names are coming up and make them Governors?" added Selja.

Reiterating the party's steadfast support for the victim's family, Kumari Selja concluded, "The Congress party has raised this issue before. They've raised it strongly. Yesterday, Rahul, Priyanka, and some of our other leaders went there with their families to stand in solidarity with them. But instead of giving them justice, the government decided it was better to just remove them from there."

Ankita was murdered on September 18, 2022, and her body was recovered from the Chilla Canal on September 24, 2022.  

Following the incident, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, urged President Droupadi Murmu to reconsider the appointment of Dushyant Kumar Gautam as the Governor of Sikkim until the investigation into the 2022 Ankita Bhandari murder case is completed.