Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) activists managed to give a slip to the elaborate police bandobast around the State Secretariat on Monday and staged a protest against the plan of the State Government to acquire the tea estate for smart city project.
The party had declared its plan to hold Secretariat march from its office on the day and administration had taken measures to prevent them from proceeding beyond Astley hall.
However, many of the activists managed to reach the entrance of the Secretariat and held the demonstration holding placards against the Government. A harried police later arrested these activists and took them to police lines from where they were released in the evening.
The protest meet was attended by Anoop Nautiyal, Ranveer Choudhary, Onkar Bhatia, Sunita Singh, Rajesh Bahuhuna, Kamal Devradi and others.
The AAP leader, Anoop Nautiyal said that the party had planned the protest to wake up the state government so as to desist it from acquiring the land of tea estate for smart city project. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to announce the names of twenty cities selected under Smart city project in the first phase on Republic Day.
Nautiyal said, “We managed to lodge our protest at the door step of the Government. We warn the Government to desist from its nefarious design of acquiring the land of the tea estate for smart city. The Government should make the existing city smart.’’ He claimed that many people and organisations have started allying for the cause of preventing tea estate and major agitation would be launched if the state government persists with its present plan on smart city.
Incidentally, the party pasted many posters in different parts of the city asking the CM not to destroy the greenery in the name of smart city and instead focus on making the existing city smart.