The half-day State-wide Bandh of Congress in protest against rising fuel prices, gas prices and inflation largely remained peaceful on Saturday. There were reports of heated arguments between Congress workers and shopkeepers at sundry places of State as Congress workers insisted to close shops. In one such incident, former minister P C Sharma and his supporters were arrested by the police in Bhopal when they were requesting shopkeeper to close the shop. Largely, Congress received good response to its bandh call and shops in markets remained closed in most of places of various cities. Large number of shopkeepers supported to Congress and themselves closed their shops. State Congress organisation incharge Chandraprabhash Shekar said that as per reports collected from different parts of State, half-day bandh call received massive support from people and Bandh remained peaceful in State.

 

He said that BJP got Congress MLA and ex-Minister P C Sharma arrested when latter was requesting shopkeeper to close the shop. He claimed that Congress bandh call received massive support in Bhopal, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Indore, Ujjain, Rewa, Satna, Sagar, Bhind, Morena, Khargone, Khandwa, Dewas, Ratlam, Jhabua etc. State Congress President and former CM Kamal Nath also expressed gratitude towards people and businessmen for lending their massive support to half day Bandh.

 

He told that backbone of people has broken due to skyrocketing inflation and people are demanding relief in taxes. BJP Government is earning in excess but did not want to provide relief to the people. When UPA was in power, rates of petrol and diesel have gone near to Rs 70. At that time, BJP leaders used to do big movements and used to ride cycle. Now all of them are not visible anywhere.