J&K Police on Wednesday prevented a situation from turning ugly when Congress and BJP workers and leaders came face to face during a protest demonstration in Jammu.
BJP workers and leaders had gathered near the office of the Congress at Shaheedi Chowk in Jammu accusing the Congress central leadership of “deliberately trying to create political instability, misleading the youth and attempting to weaken India’s democratic institutions for narrow political interests”.
To counter the BJP protest, Congress leaders and workers also started raising slogans against the BJP-led central government. This prompted the police to make massive deployment at the site to prevent the workers of the rival parties from coming close to each other.
The police formed a security cordon and kept the rival groups apart with barbed wire as both parties raised slogans within proximity to each other.
The BJP protest was led by Leader of Opposition in the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly, Sunil Sharma, who, along with senior party leaders and workers, marched towards the Congress headquarters despite heavy downpour, raising slogans against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
Sunil Sharma, while addressing the protesters, launched an attack on Rahul Gandhi and the Congress leadership, alleging that the party has “become synonymous with anarchy, political opportunism and constitutional hypocrisy”.
“The Congress under Rahul Gandhi has completely abandoned the path of constructive Opposition. Instead of participating responsibly in Parliament and contributing to nation-building, it is engaged in a dangerous conspiracy to destabilise the country by misleading and provoking the youth. The Congress is daydreaming that chaos and confusion will help it regain the political ground it has lost because of its repeated failures and rejection by the people,” Sharma said.
The Congress workers led by J&K Congress president Tariq Hameed Karra and working president Raman Bhalla came out of the party headquarters and staged a counter-protest, chanting slogans demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister.
Congress leadership, including Karra, were late on Tuesday evening put under detention for some time when they held a protest demonstration near the Lok Bhavan in Jammu.
Karra said that the protest by the Congress was a democratic right, alleging that the BJP was trying to suppress dissent instead of allowing a discussion in Parliament on the students’ agitation.
Accusing the BJP of ‘hooliganism’, Karra alleged that BJP workers had come to the party office to intimidate its members. “The protest by BJP signifies that there is an undeclared emergency in the country. This also shows how desperately BJP is trying to cover up the deeds of Union Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan whose resignation is being demanded by the students across the country,” said Karra.