Thane: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday appeared before a court at Bhiwandi in the district in a defamation case filed by an RSS activist, and presented his party’s Maharashtra unit chief Harshwardhan Sapkal as his new `surety’ or guarantor for bail.
As he travelled to Bhiwandi by road after landing in Mumbai, BJP workers showed him black flags at Mulund toll plaza and shouted slogans, accusing the Congress of maligning India’s image through the Youth Congress’s protest at the AI summit in Delhi.
Gandhi, accompanied by Sapkal, party MP Varsha Gaikwad and his lawyers Narayan Iyer and Kushal Mor, reached the magistrate’s court around 10:30 am.
The court had asked the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha to appear in person and provide a new surety following the death of previous guarantor, former Union minister Shivraj Patil Chakurkar, in December last year. Chakurkar had stood surety when the court granted bail to the Congress leader in 2016 upon his appearance.
Sapkal on Saturday filed an application before the magistrate requesting permission to stand as surety for the accused. After the verification of his affidavits and other documents, the court granted the plea.