Congress stages protest against Centre over price rise, other issues

Shimla: The Congress on Friday staged a protest here as part of its nationwide stir against the Centre over price rise, unemployment and the Goods and Services Tax (GST) hike on essential items.

The Congress workers led by the state president Pratibha Singh sloganeered against the Centre while staging the demonstration outside Raj Bhawan.

Himachal Pradesh All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge Sanjay Dutt and national spokesperson Alka Lamba also participated in the protest.

The protesters also raised slogans against the government's alleged misuse of probe agencies to target the opposition leaders in the country.

In Hamirpur, the Congress activists staged a sit-in dharna and resorted to road blockade for some time on the Hamirpur-Sujanpur road near Deputy Commissioner's office.

Earlier, district president Rajendra Zar led a march from the party office to the DC office and sat on the main road. Barsar MLA, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal and former MLA, Kuldip Pathania, also participated in the march. The police rounded up fifteen top leaders of the party for disrupting the normal traffic and took them to the local police station from where they were released later on.

While addressing the party workers, Zar said that Congress would continue to hold such processions and dharnas till the undemocratic policies of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)were not stopped.

He dubbed BJP as a party with no faith in the people and wanted to rule the nation by adopting undemocratic measures.

He said that the applecart of the BJP would be overthrown by the people in the coming Vidhan Sabha elections as people were upset with the BJP for its anti-people policies.