Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who appeared in court in Patna on Saturday in a defamation case filed by a BJP leader, said afterwards that he stood with farmers and labourers, and was fighting to “save the Constitution”.

Rahul arrived to a warm welcome in the afternoon, with Congress leaders and workers waving and showering petals as his cavalcade drove from the airport to the Patna civil court, where he presented himself before the court of additional chief judicial magistrate Kumar Gunjan.

He had earlier tweeted that he would appear at the civil court at 2pm in “yet another case filed against me by my political opponents in the RSS/ BJP to harass and intimidate” him. He signed off with: “Satyameva Jayate. (Truth alone triumphs).”

The judge read out the charges, to which Rahul pleaded not guilty. The court granted him bail on a personal bond of Rs 10,000.

BJP leader and Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi had filed the case after Rahul allegedly asked why thieves had Modi as their surname and mentioned Narendra Modi, Nirav Modi and Lalit Modi.

Coming out of the court, Rahul told journalists: “Whoever raises a voice against the ideology of RSS and Narendra Modi is attacked and dragged to the courts. I have come here to stand with farmers and labourers. I will go wherever I have to for this.”

“My fight is to save the Constitution. My fight is to save the poor and farmers in the country. The voice of Hindustan is being muzzled. I am not the Congress president now, but will continue fighting,” he said.

A large number of Congress workers gathered outside the court demanded that he take back his resignation as party president.

A group among the Congress workers led by Siddharth Kshatriya and Venkatesh Raman waved posters that said they would immolate themselves at the state Congress headquarters at Sadaquat Ashram in Patna on July 11 if Rahul did not take back his resignation.

Rahul wanted to visit Muzaffarpur to meet the families of the victims of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES), which has claimed the lives of at least 154 children, but was denied permission by the district administration to visit Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital (SKMCH) there.

Bihar Congress president Madan Mohan Jha said: “Rahul Gandhi’s office in Delhi was trying to obtain permission to visit Muzaffarpur, but it was denied. He was not allowed to go to SKMCH. Our leader is not a man who would visit any place forcibly.”

Rahul had appeared in a defamation case in Mumbai on July 4 and was granted bail. He will have to appear in two other defamation cases in Ahmedabad on July 9 and 12, and another similar case in Surat in Gujarat on July 24.