Guwahati, Oct 8 (PTI): Members of Assam’s Congress unit on Thursday staged protests across the state, including Guwahati, against alleged police harassment and detention of opposition MPs during a march in New Delhi demanding the resignation of CEC Gyanesh Kumar.
Several senior leaders, including former state Congress president Ripun Bora and Assam Pradesh Mahila Congress chief Mira Borthakur Goswami, were detained by police outside the state party headquarters here after they broke through barricades to take out a protest march.
A Congress leader claimed that Bora, a former Rajya Sabha MP, sustained injuries during the scuffle with police and needed stitches on his leg.
Bora, who led the protest at Rajiv Bhawan, said the Congress would continue its fight against what it alleged was the illegal deletion of voters’ names by the CEC at the behest of the BJP-led government.
“It is our democratic right to protest, and the government cannot take it away,” the 70-year-old leader said while climbing over the police barricade at the Rajiv Bhawan gate.
Several other leaders and members, including women supporters, also climbed over the barricade, while others forced their way out to take out the protest march through the streets of Guwahati.
However, security forces prevented it and took them into preventive detention.
Similar protests were staged in several parts of the state, including Dibrugarh, Diphu, Nagaon, Nalbari and Charaideo.
They raised slogans against Kumar and the government, burnt effigies of the CEC and the prime minister, among others.
