CD row: BJP leaders offer to court arrest, police refuse

LUCKNOW: BJP President Rajnath Singh and other top leaders of the party, including LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, on Monday marched in a procession to the Hazratganj police station here demanding they be arrested in the CD case, but police refused to oblige them.

The leaders went to the police station and insisted they wanted to court arrest in the FIR filed against Singh and UP leader Lalji Tandon in connection with the CD released by the party that contained anti-Muslim remarks.

DGP GL Sharma, however, said police was not arresting them as it was still an FIR and not a non-bailable offence.

Earlier, the leaders including Venkaiah Naidu, Ananth Kumar, Kesrinath Tripathi and others assembled at the BJP headquarters and went in a procession to the police station.

Later, Advani said the BJP leaders had told the police officials that lodging of an FIR against an innocent person like Rajnath Singh was 'bad in taste'.

He said that he respected the Election Commission as a constituinal body but it should not have ordered the lodging of an FIR againt Rajnath who was not at all involved in anyway in the release of controversial CD.