Lucknow: Twelve BJP workers were on Friday
injured when they clashed with police while protesting against
corruption and the stand taken by Congress and DMK members on
the draft report prepared by PAC chairman Murli Manohar Joshi
on the 2G spectrum scam.
Police stopped the workers led by BJP state president
Surya Pratap Shahi when they came out of the party office at
Vidhan Sabha Marg, leading to the clash followed by stone
pelting.
"The policemen unnecessarily used force against us in
which 12 party workers were injured," BJP state president
Surya Pratap Shahi said.
The workers burned an effigy which had posters of
Congress president Sonia Gandhi, BSP supremo Mayawati and SP
chief Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Police used water cannons to control the BJP workers,
who later sat on a dharna near the Vidhan Bhawan.
BJP leader and Public Accounts Committee (on 2G
spectrum scam) chairperson Joshi had faced stiff opposition
from Congress and DMK members in the PAC meeting in New Delhi
yesterday, provoking the ire of BJP and Joshi`s supporters.
The BJP workers with placards `PAC masauda bahal karo`
(restore PAC draft) raised slogans against the UPA government
as well as the Uttar Pradesh government.
"We had planned to register our protest against the
developments in the PAC meeting and also the manner in which
the BSP and Samajwadi Party sided with the UPA. But we were
stopped by the autocratic state government right in front of
the party office," Shahi said.
Leaders of Samajwadi Party and BSP are facing serious
charges in cases pertaining to assets disproportionate to
their known sources of income. They are therefore being
blackmailed by the Congress, Shahi claimed.
Party workers would stage dharnas at all the district
headquarters tomorrow to protest the development in the PAC
meeting.
PTI
