Bharat Bandh Throws Life Out of Gear in Digboi

Our Correspondent

DIGBOI: The 12- hour Bharat Bandh called by the Congress party to protest the rise in fuel price and depreciation of the rupee, threw life out of gear in Digboi and its surrounding areas in Tinsukia district. Roads wore a deserted look since morning while educational institutions and commercial establishments remained closed and private and commercial vehicles, including school buses, kept off across Margherita subdivision. Attendance in governmental offices, as well as banks and post offices, was also very thin.

The Congress workers belonging to various wings of the party under Digboi Assembly Constituency, led by Manoj Dhanowar, the State CO Chairman OBC, took to the streets and ventilated the grievances of the common people, thus resorting to burning tyres on the roads, halting trains for long hours and paralyzing normal life at the AOD refinery and its marketing terminal too. The Congress workers, who were effectively fielded across Digboi to make the bandh successful, also conducted protests near the entrance of the AOD Administrative Complex and Marketing Terminal at Golai area and refinery main gate, forbidding the workers and officials from entering the work sites and offices of the corporation in the first half of the day.

Manoj Dhanowar alleged that the Modi government had miserably failed in its efforts to address the issues affecting the common people due to spiralling prices of petrol, diesel and LPG. “The response to the bandh bears testimony of the fact that common people want to get rid of the Modi government in the next general election,” he said.

Meanwhile, security was tightened and no untoward incident was reported from Digboi and its neighbouring places till filing of the report. Total 21 Congress leaders and workers, including women, were arrested by Digboi Police as preventive arrest u/s 107 of IPC from various protests sites. The arrested Congress activists included Manoj Dhanowar, Gautam Dhanowar and Imran Hussain. They were all later released in the evening.