Congress protests in Maha districts over Rahul's ED grilling

Mumbai, June 17 (IANS) For the fifth day, the Congress on Friday staged protests and demonstrations in almost all districts of Maharashtra against the interrogation of party leader Rahul Gandhi by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

In Mumbai, a huge march was taken out from the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus to the ED office in south Mumbai with the participants raising angry slogans against the BJP and the central probe agencies.

Similar demonstrations were held at various district headquarters with thousands of Congress activists, men, women and youth joining the protests.

"The BJP government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is misusing the central investigation agencies to target Rahul Gandhi and Congress President Sonia Gandhi to silence their voices. Congress workers all over the country are extremely agitated over this," said state Women's Congress President Sandhya Savvlakhe in Mumbai.

She charged the government and its agencies of "harassing" Rahul Gandhi in the name of its investigations since the past three days in a row and now summoning him for re-investigations.

As the protestors reached the ED office, the police detained most of them and later released them.

Another protest march was taken out at Nariman Point to the BJP state headquarters under the leadership of Pawan Yadav.

Congress workers carrying banners and placards slamming the BJP joined marches in Mumbai, Thane, Raigad, Ratnagiri, Latur, Nanded, Solapur, Dhule, Kolhapur, Nagpur, Amravati, Nashik, Chandrapur, Aurangabad, Ahmednagar and other districts.

At various places, senior leaders like Praniti S. Shinde, Satej Patil, Balu Dhanorkar, Sunil Tamble, Rituraj Patil, Kumal Patil, Dheeraj V. Deshmukh and others led the protest marches as part of the nationwide concerted action.

On Thursday, the Congress had demonstrated outside the Raj Bhavan, and earlier it had taken out protest marches to the ED offices in Mumbai and Nagpur.