Cong seeks Prez help to protect its state govts

A high-level Congress delegation on Tuesday met President Pranab Mukherjee and sought his intervention to protect the duly-elected non-BJP governments in states, alleging that after Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the party dispensations there could be targeted.

The delegation led by Congress leader in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge brought up the issue when they called on Mukherjee over the situation in Hyderabad Central University in the wake of suicide by Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula.

A senior party leader, who was in the delegation, said the President was apprised of the apprehension of Congress governments in other states being targeted by the Narendra Modi government.

Himachal Pradesh CM Virbhadra Singh, who has accused the Modi dispensation of trying to “destabilise and topple” his government by using central agencies, had on Monday met Congress president Sonia Gandhi against the backdrop of imposition of President’s Rule in party-ruled Uttarakhand. The Congress delegation’s meeting with the President came on a day when Uttarakhand High Court ordered a floor test in the state Assembly on March 31.