Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Monday said the current regime under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was obsessed with power and stifling dissent. “The government tries to silence all those who disagree with it,” he said at the Congress Working Committee meet in Delhi. Gandhi was chairing a CWC meeting for the first time after party president Sonia Gandhi had to miss it because of poor health.

Senior Congress leaders, including Manmohan Singh, P Chidambaram, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Janardan Dwivedi, Ahmed Patel, Ambika Soni and AK Antony, were present at the meeting. "Hiding behind the cloak of national security, civil society is being intimidated for asking questions... Asking questions is what discomforts this government, for they have no answers, we must expose the government's failures in the upcoming Parliament session," Gandhi said. The winter session of Parliament will start on November 16.

He also spoke about the 24-hour ban on Hindi news channel NDTV India for its coverage of the Pathankot attack in January, The Times of India reported. "Television channels are being punished and asked to shut down. Democracy, under the present dispensation, is going through one of its darkest hours," he said, adding that Opposition party leaders were being arrested for "holding the government to account".

Gandhi also spoke about the One Rank, One Pension scheme for Army veterans. He said the former service personnel were being treated callously by the government, The Indian Express reported. The Congress leader was detained on Wednesday when he had gone to meet the family of a retired soldier who committed suicide as a form of protest against the delay in implementing the scheme.