Govt taking repressive action against peaceful protestors: Cong

Raipur, October 21, 2011

The Congress on Friday slammed the government for arresting party’s protestors in different parts of the state, especially in Raipur and Mahasamund districts, terming it as a repressive action against the opposition during its democratically peaceful movement.

“The BJP government is misusing its powers. Our different frontal organisations had taken out rallies against corruption prevailed in the system on Friday. The partymen also wanted to paste posters containing corrupt face of the BJP but the police stopped them forcibly,” said Congress leaders Satyanarayan Sharma, Subhash Sharma, party’s media cell chairman Shailesh Nitin Trivedi, spokespersons Mahendra Chhabra, Sushil Anand Shukla, PMC president Ambika Markam and others in a joint statement.

“The police damaged the ‘sharm rath’ taken out by PCC secretary Yogesh Tiwari and partymen which is intolerable. We have lodged complaint in this regard with the City Kotwali police station. The police also stopped ‘bailgadi yatra’ taken out by YC Raipur North VS president Sunil Kukreja. The rally in the form of ‘ghotalon ki baraat’ taken out by Aijaz Dhebar was also now allowed to proceed by the police. The action against our workers is undemocratic, however we will continue our movement against anti-corruption in state,” said the Congress leaders.

“The Raman Singh government is attempting to gag Congress because it wants to hide its scams and irregularities from senior BJP leader LK Advani whose anti-corruption yatra will reach the capital city on Saturday,” the opposition leaders said.

Still, we are committed to expose the BJP before Advani and would submit him a memorandum regarding over 20000 crore scam in the state,” they added.

They further pointed that the government was making cosmetic change only in those road arteries from where Advani’s cavalcade would move. The height of the power lines are also being increased so that Advani’s rath could proceed without any obstacle. All these alterations are being done at the cost of public inconvenience. In fact, the government has wasted huge money in superficial beautification to please Advani and to conceal its corrupt deeds,” charged the Congress leaders.