According to The Hindu, about 80 Congress workers were arrested on Monday while holding a public meeting ahead of the march they had planned in support of the student who accused former Union minister Chinmayanand of rape.

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra shunned the Uttar Pradesh government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday for allegedly blocking a party march in support of the student who has accused former Union minister Chinmayanand of rape, saying the BJP dispensation was destroying democracy in its “arrogance of power“.

The Uttar Pradesh police is blocking the march, said the Congress leader, and the party's leaders, including former Union minister Jitin Prasada, had been detained on the behest of the BJP government. The borders of Shahjahanpur district -- where the student victim who accused Chinmayanand of rapeis from -- was blocked from all sides, the opposition party said on its official Twitter handle.

The Indian National Congress has planned a 180-km march in support of the student from Shahjahanpur to Lucknow.

“In the arrogance of power, the BJP government is destroying democracy. It can go to any extent to save a rape accused and suppress the voice of the daughter of Shahjahanpur,” Ms. Gandhi said.

In a tweet in Hindi, she described the Bharatiya Janata Party-led regime in Uttar Pradesh as a nervous government.

“As soon as they get to know that there is going to be a demonstration against them, they impose (section) 144 (of the CrPC),” the Congress general secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh said. The voice of the people cannot be suppressed, injustice and tyranny cannot be hidden. The more they try, louder will be the demand for justice. Give justice to the girl from Shahjahanpur. Stop saving your minister,” she wrote on twitter.

Earlier, she had alleged criminal elements in Uttar Pradesh were being used to intimidate the law student and her family, so that criminal actions could be protected by government authority.

“The UP BJP government wants to suppress the voice seeking justice for the daughter of Shahjahanpur. The padyatra is being stopped. Our workers and leaders are being arrested. What is there to be afraid of?,” she wrote.

Although the BJP has claimed that Chinmayanand was no longer a party member of the BJP, no proof has been issued that indicates he withdrew from the party. The student who accused the minister was blackmailed and intimidated by police forces, until public outrage drew attention to the case.

However, the student has since been arrested on charges of extortion, along with two of her friends who were attempting to publicize her case. Her attempt to gain bail was also rejected.

Chinmayanand, sent to judicial custody after his arrest, has been booked under section 376C (intercourse by superintendent of jail, remand home etc.) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), a charge with a lesser punishment than in case of rape, meaning the minister is not even being charged for the crime the student accuses him of.