DEHRADUN: An FIR has been registered against former Uttarakhand chief minister Harish Rawat and 30 other Congress leaders in connection with the party’s protest against the appointment of Dushyant Gautam as Sikkim Governor over the Ankita Bhandari murder case.Cases have also been registered against Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Ganesh Godiyal, Harak Singh Rawat and Pritam Singh under Sections 132 and 223 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, news agency ANI reported.The development came after Congress leaders staged a protest outside the main gate of Lok Bhavan in Dehradun on Thursday, opposing the appointment of Gautam, the former BJP in-charge for Uttarakhand, as Sikkim Governor.Meanwhile, Congress MP and AICC in-charge for Uttarakhand Kumari Selja criticised the BJP over the appointment, alleging that the move demonstrated a disregard for democracy and justice.She said, “Congress was actually the first party to raise Ankita Bhandari’s case, and our leaders brought it up. Her family has been pleading for justice ever since, and the Congress party has stood by them.”“In Uttarakhand, there was this case of Ankita Bhandari that shook the entire state and made everyone wonder how something like this could even happen. And then names that came up, and that are still coming up- there’s a CBI investigation going on too, and some things have become public that include a few names. Today, the BJP government just picks one of those names and makes him the Governor,” Selja added.The Congress leader questioned the appointment of individuals whose names had surfaced in public scrutiny, claiming that people had lost faith in the BJP government.“So you can see that people don’t believe in democracy or justice anymore, and they certainly don’t have any faith in this government, and they shouldn’t. What made you feel the need to pick out people whose names are coming up and make them Governors?” Selja added.Reiterating the Congress party’s support for the victim’s family, Selja said, “The Congress party has raised this issue before. They’ve raised it strongly. Yesterday, Rahul, Priyanka, and some of our other leaders went there with their families to stand in solidarity with them. But instead of giving them justice, the government decided it was better to just remove them from there.”Ankita Bhandari was murdered on September 18, 2022, and her body was recovered from the Chilla Canal on September 24, 2022.Following the incident, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi urged President Droupadi Murmu to reconsider Gautam’s appointment as Sikkim Governor until the investigation into the 2022 murder case is completed.(With agency inputs)