A court in Kokrajhar on Monday granted bail to independent Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani. Mevani was arrested last week by Assam Police over a tweet that was perceived as defaming the prime minister.
Mevani had been produced before the chief judicial magistrate court in Kokrajhar on Sunday. The court had reserved judgment on his bail plea to Monday and sent him to judicial custody for a day.
The Congress had been staging daily protests over his arrest.
Other opposition parties, including AIUDF and CPI(M), as well as Assam's lone independent legislator, had also called on Mevani during his police remand and pledged their support to him. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on April 21 had termed as undemocratic and unconstitutional Jignesh Mevani's arrest by Assam Police.
Mevani—an independent MLA who won the 2017 Gujarat assembly polls with support from the Congress—was apprehended from Palanpur town in Gujarat on April 20 after a FIR under various sections of the IPC and the IT Act was filed in Kokrajhar Police Station over his purported tweet against the prime minister.
According to the FIR, he had purportedly posted a tweet claiming Prime Minister Narendra Modi “considered [Nathuram] Godse as God”.
