Priyanka takes ride on scooty, owner gets traffic ticket

Lucknow : The Lucknow traffic police has handed over a challan of Rs 6,300 to the owner of the scooty on which Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra rode on Saturday.

Priyanka Gandhi was on her way to meet the family of jailed former IPS officer and social activist S.R. Darapuri when she was stopped by the police on Saturday evening, and hopped on to the scooty of a Congress worker for a short distance.

The scooty with the registration number UP32 HB 8270 has now been given a challan because the driver and Priyanka who was sitting pillion were not wearing helmets which are mandatory. The scooty belongs to Congress leader Dheeraj Gujjar.

A Lucknow cop, who had allegedly manhandled Congress leader Priyanka while she was on her way to meet a retired IPS officer, who has been arrested for protesting against the Citizenship Act, has denied the allegations, adding that the Congress leader was stopped "when she changed her route".

Gandhi had claimed that cops in Lucknow had stopped her car while she was on her to way to meet SR Darapuri, the 76-year-old retired IPS officer. Following this, Gandhi hitched on a party worker's scooter but she was again stopped at an intersection two kilometres away.

She then decided to cover the rest of the distance till Darapuri's residence, located in Sector 18, Indiranagar, on foot. Recalling the sequence of events, Gandhi had said, "I got off the vehicle and started walking.

I was surrounded and a woman cop held me by my throat. Another woman cop pushed me and I fell down. I was forcibly stopped and a woman officer pulled me up by my neck. But I was determined. I am standing with every citizen who has faced police oppression. This is my 'satyagraha'".

Her husband Robert Vadra on Sunday lauded the Congress general secretary for reaching out to people who need her and said there is no crime to be with those in grief.

Actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha questioned the police action on Priyanka, and in a message to PM Modi, suggested that this was no way to do "damage control".

The Congress leader had alleged that she had been manhandled and "grabbed by the throat" by policewomen as they tried to stop her from visiting the home of a retired police officer who was arrested after taking part in the protests against the citizenship law.

If the daughter of the Nehru-Gandhi family could be treated this way, "dread to think what commoners would face," Sinha said in a series of tweets.

"First, you removed / downsized the security of VIPs, slowly but surely increased your security, then removed the #SPG cover of the Gandhi family & now, the #UPPolice under your Govt.'s instructions dealt with her in most shameful manner.

This is highly condemnable," he posted on the microblogging site.