Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 4: Protesting against the increasing discrimination with Jammu and Ladakh regions and price hike, a large number of BJP activists courted arrest near Ranbireshwar Chowk here today.
The BJP activists led by party State chief, Jugal Kishore Sharma under party’s “Secretariat Ghearo” programme on the opening day of move offices at Jammu, took out a procession towards Civil Secretariat this morning but police foiled their attempt and did not allow the protestors to move forward from Ranbireshwar Chowk where a high pose of police was deployed.
The protestors with party flags in their hands were raising slogans against the Coalition Government for its failure to end discrimination with Jammu and Ladakh regions and contain rising prices in the State which have broken the back of common man. The police had erected barricades at Ranbireshwar Chowk and it did not allow any one to proceed ahead. This resulted into a scuffle between BJP activists and police. A high drama prevailed at Ranbireshwar Chowk for some time and the party activists jostled with men in Khaki in their bid to break police cordon.
Later the BJP leaders were arrested and taken to District Police Line Jammu. All of them were released in the evening.
Besides Jugal Kishore Sharma and other senior BJP leaders who participated in Secretariat Ghearo programme and were later arrested included its Legislative Party leader, Ashok Khajuria, national executive members Dr Nirmal Singh, Shamsher Singh Manhas, MLAs-Sham Choudhary and Sukhnandan Choudhary, State vice-president Chander Prakash Ganga and others
Earlier, Jugal Kishore Sharma and other leaders led a protest march of party workers from Indira Chowk and they were blocked by a heavy contingent of police enroute Secretariat but they finally managed to overcome all the police barricades and reached Shalimar Chowk where massive protest was held.
Jugal Kishore Sharma, criticized the NC-Congress Coalition Government for discriminating with Jammu and Ladakh regions in matters related to development and extension of welfare schemes. He said that Jammu has also suffered at the hands of Kashmiri leaders because of the stoic silence by the elected representatives of NC and Congress from Jammu who don’t want to lose power. He said that the Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah is raking up the settled issue of accession of the State with India and is trying to unsettle this question which has been long back settled by his own grandfather.
He said that the CM has concern and time for making repeated utterances on K-issue but least concern and time for masses.
Ashok Khajuria said that constitutionally and legally J&K is the integral part of India but unfortunately some elements rake up the issue of accession or merger to divert the attention of the masses from real issues. He said that the provision of separate State flag in addition to the national Tri-colour too has induced a sense of separatism and sooner it gets better it would be for the State.
Dr Nirmal Singh said that the people have now realized that while the Congress has never uttered a single word for Jammu, the BJP always remained on forefront to highlight the problems of youth, refugees, migrants, senior citizens, ex-serviceman, farmers and so on.
Amarnath Gupta, Prof. Hari Om, Chander Prakash Ganga, Suresh Jamwal, Bali Bhagat, Kavinder Gupta, Sat Sharma (C.A), MLA Sham Choudhary, MLA Sukhnandan Kumar, Chander Mohan Gupta, Mamta Singh, Munish Sharma, Yudhvir Sethi, Ravinder Raina, Pt. Ashok Kumar, Parmodh Kapahi, Rajesh Gupta, Baldev Singh, Keshav Dutt, Subash Jandial, Sat Pal Pappi, Daljeet Singh, Bansi Lal Bharti, Nand Kishore Sharma, N.D. Rajwal, Chaman Lal Kanathia, Subash Bhagat, Raj Singh and Kashmir Singh were among a large number of party activists who courted arrest.
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