Jammu: Over 200 workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Smriti Irani, actress and president of the party women's wing, courted arrest Friday in Jammu as part of their nationwide campaign to protest "price rise, corruption and failure of the ruling UPA government on all fronts".
Addressing the gathering at Dogra Chowk in the heart of Jammu city, Irani said, "Price rise, corruption and scams have broken the backbone of the common man, but in Jammu and Kashmir water scarcity and long, unscheduled power cuts are adding to the woes."
She was accompanied by Shamsher Singh Manhas, BJP state unit president, and other senior party members.
The protestors shouted slogans as they boarded buses while courting arrest.
Irani, talking to media persons on the BJP's support to P.A. Sangma as a presidential candidate, said: "We are proud to back a tribal leader and hope he will win."
She dismissed the talk of division within the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance on the presidential election and said, "There is just difference of opinion, nothing else."
The BJP's campaign of protests and courting arrest will continue for a fortnight.
INS
First Published: Friday, June 22, 2012, 14:15