Members of the Raipur BJP had gathered for a review meeting, for which journalists in the city were also invited.Four BJP members have been booked after party leaders got into heated arguments with each other at a review meeting in Raipur on Saturday and allegedly assaulted a journalist, forcing him to delete footage of the ruckus.
Police officers confirmed that an FIR has been registered against four BJP men, including district BJP president Rajeev Agarwal.
On Saturday afternoon, members of the Raipur BJP had gathered for a review meeting, for which journalists in the city were also invited. A journalist who was present at Ekatma Parisar said, “There were a lot of arguments between the BJP cadre, even some pushing and shoving. Suman Pandey, a reporter working for web portal Voices.in, was filming this, doing his job. BJP members surrounded him, hit him, and refused to let him leave till he deleted the footage. This was despite him and several other journalists telling them (BJP members) that he is a reporter.”
Sources in the BJP said the ruckus started after Nande Sahu, the BJP candidate from Raipur rural seat who lost to Satyanarayan Sharma of the Congress, got into an argument with district president Rajeev Agarwal, who said that Sahu was not meant to be at the meeting.
“Yes, there were some issues but things were quickly sorted out. Some of our members believed that the reporter was from the Congress and was not a journalist. There was no assault,” a BJP leader said.
CM Bhupesh Baghel tweeted, “We are moving quickly towards a journalist safety bill.”
