GUWAHATI, Nov 6 - Police resorted to lathi-charge and detained a number of senior Congress leaders during a protest organized outside the RBI's regional office here today as part of the principal opposition party's ongoing nationwide agitation against the Central government's economic policies.
Hundreds of party workers, led by State Congress chief Ripun Bora, All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary and former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat and the Leader of the Opposition in the Assam Legislative Assembly Debabrata Saikia, took part in the protest today as part of the party�s nationwide agitation from November 5 to November 15.
They shouted slogans against the Narendra Modi-led Central government's economic policies and alleged that wrong decisions of the Centre has taken the Indian economy to the brink of recession, resulting in job losses and growing unemployment, distress in the farm sector and fall in consumption.
Former Union Ministers Jairam Ramesh and Mukul Wasnik were also present in the protest.
The police had put up barricades a short distance from the RBI office to prevent the protestors from reaching it. However, the Congress workers broke through the barricades and managed to reach the gate of the RBI office.
There was a scuffle between the police and the agitators. The police resorted to mild lathi-charge, which resulted in minor injuries to some Congress leaders and workers.
Bora, Rawat, former State minister Rakibul Hussain, MLAs Nandita Das and Rosalina Tirkey, along with a number of other Congress protestors, were then detained by the police and taken away from the spot. They were released later in the day.
Earlier, addressing the gathering, Rawat said that demonetization, poor implementation of GST and other "wrong decisions" of the Narendra Modi-led government has brought large-scale misery to the common masses of India.
He said similar protests will be held by Congress members at all district and block headquarters across Assam from November 7 to November 9.
