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450 BJP activists held in Lucknow

LUCKNOW: Around 450 Bharatiya Janata Party workers and leaders were arrested here on Tuesday when they attempted to gherao the Raj Bhavan here.

They had marched from the party office to present a memorandum on the Amarnath land controversy.

Police used mild force, fired teargas shells and used water cannon to disperse the agitators, who included senior leaders like Lalji Tandon, Om Prakash Singh, the former Vidhan Sabha Speaker, Kesari Nath Tripathi, and Sheema Rizvi.

Additional Director-General of Police (Law and Order) Brij Lal told reporters that among those arrested were two MPs, 14 MLCs and 30 MLAs for defying prohibitory orders.

He said cases have been lodged against the BJP workers who attempted to damage public property, including buses.

A scuffle broke out between security personnel and the BJP workers when the latter were prevented from entering the Raj Bhavan to present the memorandum to the Uttar Pradesh Governor.

As the face-off continued the BJP leaders sat on a dharna on the Mahatma Gandhi Marg, disrupting traffic. They were later arrested.

Condemning what he termed as a brutal police assault on party workers, BJP spokesman Hridaya Narain Dixit said the party would continue its agitation on the land issue.

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