New Delhi, April 16 (IANS) The Congress party Thursday claimed that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Varun Gandhi’s undertaking to Etah jail authorities that he will not make inflammatory speeches during his parole is “virtual admission” of having made hate speeches in the past.
“All the bravado is gone. All claims of martyrdom are gone. This is nothing but abject surrender for parole. There is a virtual admission by Varun Gandhi of the fact that what he did earlier was bad and wrong, and he undertakes and promises not to do so in future. It is an undertaking that makes it clear that what he did was wrong,” Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi told reporters here.

Singhvi termed Gandhi’s two week parole a “temporary release” and said that “the law is above all and the law has put him in a tight leash”.

The Supreme Court earlier Thursday ordered “forthwith release” of Gandhi for two weeks to enable him to file his nomination for Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit Lok Sabha constituency and for the poll campaign.

The Gandhi scion has been in jail for around two weeks and had been arrested after a series of campaign speeches vilifying Muslims, the tapes of which he said had been doctored.