Even after Congress’s claimed their ‘Rail & Road Roko’ agitation against the land Acquisition Bill of the Centre and bad law and order in the state as a big success but the protest turned out to be more of a Rssymbolic’, making a little impact on rail or road movement in the State, on Thursday.
However, much to the relief of state president, Nirmal Khatri, most of the Congress leaders came out to show solidarity and unity within the Party and to sent a message that Opposition even now could not right-off the oldest and longest serving political party in the country. Interestingly, the move of the Congress supremo, Sonia Gandhi, who took street in New Delhi to walk down to residence of Manmohan Singh, to show Party’s full support behind the former prime minister, whose name now places in coal scam accused list, also worked as a morale booster for the Congress leaders who too came out to protest against the Centre as well as the State government.
Over hundred leaders along with some senior Congressmen, which included Pramod Tewari, Sanjay Singh, both MPs, Rajesh Mishra, Ajai Rai, both former MPs were also arrested in Ghaziabad and Varanasi respectively. To make their agitation successful, senior leaders kept their programme a close guarded secret as they feared of being arrested in order to foil their call. However, the law enforcing agencies not used force any where in the State and just co-operated with the agitators to register their Rssymbolic protest’ and clear the rail track or road.
In state capital, local Congressmen first stopped Century Express near the Buddha park of Daliganj on Thursday morning. later, Khatri blocked rail track near Sadar crossing,
in which four trains were detained. He also blocked the Kanpur Highway near Shahid Path for more than one hour. Several senior Congress leaders including Satyadeo Tripathi, Pramod Singh, Amarnath Agarwal, Siddharthpriya Srivastava, Maroof Khan, Prabhujot Batra, Virendra Madan, Dwijendra Tripathi, RP Singh, Ramesh Srivastava, Gaurav Chowdhary, JP Singh, and others joined Khatri in the protest. Former UP Congress president Rita Bahuguna Joshi staged protest at the Charbagh station, where she detained two trains. later, she blocked the Highway near Alambagh. Shatabadi Express from New Delhi to lucknow was blocked by the activists, first in Aligarh and then in Kanpur. In Ghaziabad, hundred of Congress leaders, led by Party MPs, Pramod Tewari and Sanjay Singh, led the protest. In Kanpur, former coal minister, Shree Prakash Jaiswal, led the protest.
Congress workers in lucknow, Kanpur, Allahabad, Rae Bareilly, Sitapur, Hardoi, Unnao, Agra, Mainpuri, Ferojabad, Aligarh, Balia, Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Bulundshahr, Shahjahanpur, Hathras, Mathura, Gorapkhpur, Bareilly, Hapur, Deoria, Varanasi, Moradabad and other districts blocked the rail and road communication and the impact was seen on Delhi-Howrah rail route. During the protest, the Congress activists also raised slogans against the Centre and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Congress members also raked up the issue in the state Assembly by waving posters ‘ NRI PM Hai Hai’ and staged a noisy walkout from the House. Congress member of the Assembly Akhilesh Pratap Singh alleged that the party would not let the issue of farmers die as the BJP government was making all out effort to woo the industrialists.
Talking to media persons here, Khatri said the land acquisition bill passed by the Central government is an example of anti-farmers mentality and Congress will not tolerate this injustice with the farmers. They will continue to stage their protest time to time against the Bill, Congress president asserted. Targeting the state government, Khatri said the recent incident of lathi-charge on advocates and the murder of a lawyer by a policeman inside the district court of Allahabad, speaks about the poor condition of law and Order in the state.