Chandigarh, Feb 25 (UNI) Tensions flared in the UT on Wednesday as senior Haryana Congress leaders and workers clashed with the Chandigarh Police during a planned march to gherao the state Assembly.
The protest, led by state Congress president Rao Narendra Singh and leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda, was organized to voice opposition against recent changes to the MNREGA scheme.
The confrontation occurred near the party’s headquarters in Sector 9, where police had established multi-layered barricades to halt the procession.
The situation turned volatile when Congress supporters attempted to scale the barricades to proceed toward the Assembly complex. This led to a heated standoff and physical scuffles between the protesters and security personnel.
Following the altercation, the police took several prominent leaders into custody and transported them to the Sector 3 police station. Earlier in the day, the Chandigarh administration had denied permission for the march and enforced Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (formerly Section 144) around the party office, advising the opposition to restrict their demonstration to the designated protest ground in Sector 25.
Haryana Congress president Rao Narendra Singh alleged that the BJP government was using high-handed tactics to suppress democratic dissent. He claimed that several party functionaries across various districts were placed under house arrest early in the morning to prevent them from reaching the capital.
“The government is clearly intimidated. In a democracy, such actions are unprecedented. Our leaders were not arriving in trucks or blocking rails; they were exercising their right to protest,” Singh remarked.
The state Congress chief further criticized the administration’s last-minute directives, stating that while he had informed the authorities about the demonstration, the restrictive notices were issued only on the morning of the event.
He questioned the independence of the officials involved, suggesting they were operating under external political pressure. Despite the detentions and the police crackdown, the party maintained that it would continue its struggle against the government’s policies regarding rural employment and social welfare schemes.
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