The Congress on Wednesday filed a complaint over “open threats” by the leaders of the BJP and its allies “to eliminate/cause bodily harm” to the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi.

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said as her brother raises the voice of the people with increasing strength, the verbal and ideological violence against him is also intensifying.

“Is raising the voice of millions of Dalits, backward classes, tribals, and the poor such a grave crime that the BJP has started threatening to treat the Leader of the Opposition like his grandmother?” she asked in a post on X.

“The continuous series of violent, abusive, and inhumane statements prove that this is an organised and deliberate campaign, which is extremely dangerous for the country’s democracy. Even more dangerous is the fact that the Prime Minister, Home Minister, and the entire RSS-BJP leadership are supporting this and taking no action. Do the people of RSS-BJP now want to make violence and hatred the core principle of democracy?”

In the complaint submitted by Congress treasurer Ajay Maken at New Delhi’s Tughlak Road Police Station, a copy of which was also sent to the Chief Election Commissioner of India, the party said, “The threats issued by various BJP Leaders and its allies, calling for assassination and/or bodily injury onto Rahul Gandhi and also calling the Leader of Opposition of the country a terrorist, exhibits personal hatred by the BJP/ NDA alliance partners against Gandhi and such utterances are made only with the aim to cause unrest among the general masses to provoke rioting, breach of peace etc. through the hate filled remarks.”

It added: “Shri Rahul Gandhi has been continuously raising issues pertaining to deprived sections of the society such as women, youth, Dalits and other marginalized sections etc. and the failure of the BJP to address such public centric issue. However, the same has not gone down well with the BJP and its allies, therefore the above-named persons have been deputed to make such hate-filled comments on the Leader of Opposition of India.”

The complaint named BJP leader Tarvinder Singh Marwah, who as per the complaint “openly issued assassination threat against Gandhi” on September 11. The complaint said Marwah had said that if Rahul Gandhi doesn’t mend his ways, he will meet the same fate as his grandmother Indira Gandhi.

BJP ally Shiv Sena’s MLA Sanjay Gaikwad, as per the complaint, had on September 16 “announced a bounty of Rs 11 lakhs for anyone who will cut the tongue of Rahul Gandhi”.

The complaint also named Minister of State for Railways Ravneet Singh Bittu, who it said “called the Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi as the ‘number one terrorist of the country’” on September 15. Lastly, it named Uttar Pradesh Minister Raghuraj Singh for saying that “Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi is the ‘number one terrorist of India”.

“In view of the above, the above-named person all connected with a common thread to the ruling BJP, hatched a well-planned criminal conspiracy, with other known/ unknown associates to commit the above acts. Accordingly, I request you to register an FIR, inter-alia, u/s 351, 352, 353, 61 of BNS, at the earliest, against the above-named persons and their associates,” read the complaint submitted by Maken.