Dhurwa roundabout in Jharkhand’s capital Ranchi turned into a battlefield for around an hour on Tuesday as BJP workers marching to the state secretariat clashed with police, who in turn used force, water cannons and tear gas shells.
Police resorted to lathi-charge twice as BJP workers tried to pull down the barricades and hurled water bottles to attack the security personnel, besides pelting stones.
The clash left around two dozen people, including at least two journalists and a policeman, injured. They were shifted to different hospitals and discharged after treatment.
“A few with mild injuries were treated in the standby ambulances while others were shifted to nearby hospital,” said Ranchi deputy commissioner Rahul Sinha.
BJP, however, claimed hundreds of their workers were injured in the “targeted attack” by police.
“The targeted lathi-charge shows how scared this government is. We were protesting in a peaceful manner but our workers were targeted with batons and tear gas shells. We will burn effigy of chief minister Hemant Soren across all blocks in the state on Wednesday and observe it as a black day,” said Jharkhand BJP president Deepak Prakash.
Several BJP leaders, including parliamentarians Sameer Oraon, Sanjay Seth, Sunil Singh and party’s chief whip Biranchi Narayan, who managed to cross the barricades, were detained by police. “We detained 20 BJP workers, including MPs and MLAs, and sent them to camp jails,” said Ranchi senior superintendent of police Kishor Kaushal.
Earlier, thousands of BJP workers, led by its top leaders Deepak Prakash and former CMs Babulal Marandi and Raghubar Das, started their march to secretariat from Prabhat Tara ground where the party workers had assembled from across the state for “Hemant Hatao, Jharkhand Bachao” protest.
“The government is using several tricks to stop us but no force can stop us from reaching the secretariat today. I promise you two things. I would not rest till all members of the Soren family go to jail. And secondly, the assembly elections happen only six months after Lok Sabha elections. We will create so much pressure on the Election Commission that the two elections happen together,” said Nishikant Dubey, BJP MP from Godda Lok Sabha constituency.
Raghubar Das said, “Several senior IAS and IPS officers have gone for central deputation because of the functioning of this government. This government will have to go.”
Meanwhile, the ruling JMM and Congress said the protest was a failure. “They are claiming to bring crowd of 1 lakh, but not even 5,000 turned up. In order to save their face, they resorted to violence, leaving even journalists injured. People have rejected them earlier and they would continue to do so in upcoming elections,” said JMM spokesperson Manoj Pandey.