Senior Cong leaders among 400 held during Janakrosh rally in Gujarat

Thousands of Congress party supporters gathered in Gandhinagar to hold a rally against oppressive BJP government, and atrocities on Dalits

Nearly 400 Congress supporters, along with its senior leaders and MLAs, were detained while they were marching towards the state Assembly as part of the party's 'Janakrosh rally' organised here on Tuesday said police.

They were stopped when they reached the main gate of the Assembly.

Among those detained included Leader of Opposition Shankersinh Vaghela, state Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki, senior leaders Shaktisinh Gohil, Siddharth Patel, Rajya Sabha MP Madhusudan Mistry, Manish Doshi, and nearly 20 MLAs.

"We detained around 400-odd people as they tried to enter the state Assembly. Those detained included senior party leaders," Gandhinagar SP Virendra Yadav said.

Thousands of Congress party supporters gathered in Gandhinagar to hold a rally against the "oppressive" BJP government, and atrocities on the Dalits, even as monsoon session of the Assembly was in progress on the second - and last day.

As the protesters reached the Assembly entrance, police put up a barricade to stop them from entering the premises. When they tried to force their way, police used force and water canons to prevent them, and then detained them.

All those detained were later let off.

Emerging from the police detention, Bharatsinh Solanki attacked the BJP government in the state for being "irresponsible and oppressive".

"The BJP government has become irresponsible and oppressive towards the public. Corruption has grown and every section of people is fed up with the government. Even when the Dalits were being attacked, beaten up, the Prime Minister remained silent on the issue and instead expressed his solidarity for the people of Balochistan," Solanki said.

He said the government did little to prevent attacks on the Dalits, the adivasis and the OBC community members.

Earlier, addressing the gathering at the rally, LoP Vaghela asked the public to uproot the BJP government.

"Unlike the BJP government, the Congress government worked in the interest of the public. When our PM (Narendra Modi) was chief minister here, in 2013, he criticised Congress-led UPA government over rising petrol, diesel price. The price continues to rise," he said.

"The BJP stalled passage of GST Bill for four years. Now, it had trouble when Congress raised objection to it. BJP continues to chant that the PM is from Gujarat. They wanted to congratulate Urjit Patel for being appointed as RBI governor, for his being a Gujarati. I objected to it. All this is being done to mislead the public," Vaghela told the gathering.

Earlier, around 50 Congress MLAs were evicted and suspended for a day from the Assembly when they protested in the House over the Una Dalit flogging incident.