Gopal Sharma
JAMMU, Nov 9: Pradesh Congress Committee president and former Minister Ghulam Ahmed Mir, several former Ministers including Ex-DyCM Tara Chand, Sham Lal Sharma, Raman Bhalla, Mohd Sharief Niaz, GM Saroori and Mula Ram were among about 500 Congress leaders and activists arrested after the police foiled their massive protest rally and bid to ‘Gherao’ Civil Secretariat on the day of reopening of Darbar Move offices in the winter capital city here today.
Led by PCC chief, a large number of Congress activists started their protest rally against PDP-BJP Govt towards Civil Secretariat at around 11.30 am. The Congress workers from various districts and blocks including members of frontal organizations like PYC, Mahila Congress, INTUC, Seva Dal, NSUI and ex-Corporators assembled at Maharaja Hari Singh Park near river Tawi. GA Mir and several other senior leaders addressed the mammoth gathering before launching their protest march from there.
The protesters were carrying party flags and placards highlighting various issues like price rise, yatra tax on Vaishno Devi pilgrims, religious intolerance, failure to provide adequate relief & rehabilitation package to border residents, refugees and displaced persons from PoK and West Pakistan and farmers, denial of full-fledged AIIMS to Jammu, anti- reservation and anti- youth polices of the Government, enhancement of power tariff and long unscheduled power cuts, issues of daily wagers, casual workers, NYC and failure of the Government to ensure regular and timely payment of salaries and other claims to the employees and pensioners, failure to provide ration as per scale, stopping the practice of summer Secretariat in Jammu and disempowerment of elected Panchayats were among various issues highlighted by the protestors as failures of the State and the Central Governments on all fronts.
As they reached near General Bus Stand after crossing, Maharaja Gulab Singh Marg, Vivekanand Chowk and Upper Gumat, a strong police and paramilitary force contingent including lady police led by SP City stopped them near Hotel Samrat. The police had sealed the road by laying concertina and barbed wire. The Congress workers also showed some resistance but they were not allowed by the cops to move ahead towards Indira Chowk and Shalamar Road.
The police had already placed some buses, police trucks and other vehicles and they arrested senior Congress leaders, legislators and other workers and shifted them to District Police Lines at Gandhinagar. The police went short of vehicles to shift the protesting Congress activists, offering court arrest.
Meanwhile, former Revenue Minister Raman Bhalla fainted when he was addressing large gathering inside DPL. Mr Bhalla had sweating and was about to fell down. He was supported by fellow party workers and was rushed to nearby Police Hospital. His health is said to have improved. Later he was shifted to Super Speciality hospital.
Earlier, addressing the gathering, The PCC chief lashed out at the PDP-BJP Govt in the State for its failure on all fronts and vitiating the atmosphere of peace and harmony in the State due to their wrong and directionless policies. He said that the Modi-led Government at the Centre has failed to fulfill a single commitment with the people and has brought miseries for the common man due to unprecedented price hike in the country.
The PCC leaders alleged that the package announced by Prime Minister during his recent visit of the State was an eye wash and most of the ongoing and approved projects and their funding for the next five years have been pooled together as part of packaging exercise by the NDA Government and most of the sections including flood affected have been left high and dry without any substantial relief against the relief & rehabilitation package of Rs 44,000 crore recommended by the previous Government.
Congratulating the people of Bihar and the leadership of the Congress party and `Mahagathbandhan’ for the land slide victory, Mir said the verdict of Bihar is a referendum against the wrong polices of the Modi Government and the atmosphere of religious intolerance created in the country by the BJP and its sister concerns to polarize the Indian society. He (Mir) said that secularism and religious tolerance is the greatest asset of this country and the path shown by our great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Pt Jawaharlal Nehru and other stalwarts is the only way to maintain peace, unity and integrity of this country.
The senior leaders who were arrested included PCC president GA Mir, Sham Lal Sharma, former DyCM Tara Chand, ex-MP Madan Lal Sharma, Mula Ram, GM Saroori-MLA, Raman Bhalla, Kanta Bhan, Mohd Sharief Niaz, Ravinder Sharma, MLAs Vikar Rasool & Mumtaz Khan; MLCs- Naresh Gupta, Sham Lal Bhagat; Rajnesh Sharma, Balwan Singh, Manohar Lal, Shabir Ahmed Khan, Vikram Malhotra, Yogesh Sawhney, Ch Shah Mohammad, Manjit Singh, Manmohan Singh, Shahnawaz Choudhary, Namrata Sharma, Indu Pawar (PMC), Shiv Kumar Sharma-INTUC, Pranav Shagotra-PYC, BS Sambyal-Seva Dal, Neeraj Kundan-NSUI; Anil Chopra Subash Gupta, Ch Sain Rashid, Arun Singh Raju, G L Chalotra, Shiv Dev Singh, Ashok Dogra, Krishan Chander Bhagat, Vinod Mishra, Maheshwar Singh, Darshan Raina, M K Bhardwaj, YV Sharma, Kuldip Raj Verma, Ch Bashir Naaz, Th Balbir Singh Ex-MLA, MA Goni, Iqbal Malik, Hari Singh Chib, Rashid Choudhary, Krishan Lal Gupta, Neeraj Gupta, Pawan Raina, Ashwani Puri, Manjit Singh Jatt, Nadeem Niaz, Satish Sharma and others.
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