Parallel rallies by BJP and Congress take ugly turn

Shimla, Aug 29 (UNI) Simultaneous rallies by BJP and the Congress on the last day of monsoon session of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly at different venues outside Vidhan sabha today took an ugly turn with the police resorting to mild lathi-charge to avoid a violent clash between the workers of two parties.

While the police tried to push back the protesting BJP men with lathis, the Congressmen pelted them with stones, injuring about 30 people, including the BJP national vice president Shanta Kumar.

The district administration failed to take sufficient safeguards to avoid a situation as the two rallies were being held simultaneously outside the Vidhan sabha separated by a small distance.

After the BJP rally was over at the Chaura maidan, its leaders and workers, in large numbers, started marching towards Vidhan sabha and squatted on the road, and blocked traffic on the cart road.

Seeing the BJP men approaching the Vidhan Sabha, the Congress workers, who too were present in impressive numbers and still at the venue of their rally outside Vidhan sabha started raising provocative slogans.

Following this, tension further mounted and stone pelting started from the Congress side. The Police too jumped in and pushed back the BJP workers with lathis already being targeted by the Congressmen.

As the situation started worsening the Police resorted to mild lathi-charge to disperse workers of the two parties, in which several BJP members, six policemen and four NSUI activists were injured.

As all this was happening, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and his cabinet colleagues, who stayed in the balcony of the vidhayak sadan for quite some time, reportedly asked the Congress workers not to leave the venue even after the rally was over.

''We had to resort to reasonable force to disperse the BJP members as they were forcibly trying to enter the venue of Congress rally. Six Policemen were injured'', district Police chief A P Singh claimed.

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