New Delhi (TIP)- Dressed in all black, Congress leaders took to streets on Friday as they held a nationwide protest against price rise, unemployment, and the Goods and Services Tax (GST) hike on essential items. However, the Congress’s plan to ‘gherao’ Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s residence was foiled by the Delhi Police as officials initiated a crackdown on protesters. Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party raised questions over why the Congress chose August 5 to hold the protest. The BJP leaders also slammed the Congress leaders’ choosing to protest in black clothes, alleging that it was to convey opposition to Ram temple in Ayodhya.

From Delhi to Assam to Madhya Pradesh and Telangana, the Congress workers hit the streets across the nation as they heeded the top leadership’s call for mass protest against price rise and unemployment.

In Delhi, several Congress MPs including former party president Rahul Gandhi staged a protest in the Parliament House complex and took out a march towards the Rashtrapati Bhawan as part of their nationwide stir.

The protesting MPs raised slogans against the government demanding that the GST hike on essential items be withdrawn, with party chief Sonia Gandhi standing with the women MPs of the party holding a banner outside Parliament gate. In Assam, the Congress attempted to gherao the Raj Bhavan at Guwahati as they held demonstration on Friday. In Madhya Pradesh, the protesters tried to march to the Raj Bhawan to hand over a memorandum of demands to the Governor, but were stopped by the police.

The Punjab unit staged a protest under the leadership of state Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring and Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa, while in Haryana, the protest was led by former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and state Congress president Udai Bhan.

CONGRESS LEADERS DETAINED

Hundreds of Congress workers were detained across the country as they organised protest against the government on Friday. The Delhi Police detained more than 200 Congress protesters, including 50 Members of Parliament, from Lutyens’ Delhi. Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Deepender S Hooda, and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury were among those detained by the police in Delhi. In Bihar, more than a hundred Congress workers, besides some senior leaders, were rounded up by the police on Friday.

Police had put up barricades on the routes leading to the Raj Bhawan, the official residence of the governor, from the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) headquarters in UP.

INDIA WITNESSING DEATH OF DEMOCRACY: RAHUL GANDHI

Ahead of the Congress’s nationwide protest, Rahul Gandhi addressed a press conference at party headquarters in Delhi. Rahul Gandhi alleged that India is witnessing the “death of democracy” and anybody who raises people’s issues and stands against the onset of dictatorship is “viciously attacked” and put in jail. “What we are witnessing is the death of democracy. That is what India is witnessing. What India has built brick by brick, starting almost a century ago, is basically being destroyed in front of your eyes,” Rahul Gandhi said.

Source: India Today