Outside court, Cong workers ask Rahul to withdraw resignation

As Rahul Gandhi reached a court here to appear before it in a defamation case, many Congress supporters gathered outside shouted slogans, asking him to rescind his resignation as the party chief.

Across the road from the metropolitan court building, around 150 Congress supporters held placards and shouted slogans asking Gandhi to take back his resignation as the party's president.

Congress workers also shouted similar slogans outside Mumbai airport when Gandhi landed here this morning.

Soon after Gandhi reached the court, CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury also arrived, as he is also facing proceedings in the defamation case, filed by an RSS worker.

Police put up barricades outside the Mazgaon-Sewree magistrate court's main entrance and barred people and media persons from entering the court premises.

Police informed other litigants and media persons that entry was allowed only for court staff and lawyers.

Gandhi arrived in a SUV, flanked by his guards and greeted the supporters briefly before walking into the court gates.

The Mazgaon metropolitan magistrate had in February this year issued summons to Gandhi and Yechury in response to a defamation plea filed by Dhrutiman Joshi, lawyer and worker of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

Joshi had alleged that after the death of journalist Gauri Lankesh, Gandhi had told reporters that "anybody who speaks against the ideology of the BJP, against the ideology of the RSS, is pressured, beaten, attacked and even killed.