October is no longer a season of mists and mellowness. For us Delhiites, it has become a season of protests. The most recent and poignant dissent is that of Ankita Bhandari’s aged parents, who are being forced to protest the appointment of BJP’s former Uttarakhand in-charge, Dushyant Kumar Gautam, as governor of Sikkim at the India Gate. Ankita Bhandari, the attractive 19-year-old receptionist, was murdered close to the Vantara resort by a BJP minister’s son, Pulkit Arya, in 2022 because she refused to provide sexual favours to two VIPs.

In the chats recovered by the police, Ankita told her boyfriend two days before her death that Pulkit was putting pressure on her to provide ‘extra services to a VIP’ for which she was being offered Rs 10,000. She told her friend, “Being a poor woman does not mean I am willing to sell myself.” Pulkit is now serving a life sentence, but this hill state has been on the boil ever since her death, demanding the arrest of the VIPs.

Protests after her death have not relented, forcing the state Chief Minister, Pushkar Singh Dhami, to order a CBI enquiry earlier this year. With the noose tightening around the two VIPs, namely Dushyant Gautam and Ajay Kumar, both were known to have made a quiet exit from the state, having been replaced by BJP national vice president Ram Madhav.

The surprise announcement of Dushyant Gautam as governor of Sikkim has created shockwaves in the hill state and has only resulted in the protests shifting to the capital city. The victim’s parents, who were on a sit-in protest at the India Gate on October 13, were joined by several........

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