DMK men court arrest during agitation on fuel price hike

Leader of the Opposition in the Puducherry Assembly and convenor of the territorial unit of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) R Siva and its cadres courted arrest on Thursday when they tried to besiege the House over fuel price hike.

Siva and other legislators of the DMK - Annibal Kennedy, Senthil Kumar and L.Sampath and party presidium chairman S P Sivakumar - raised slogans against the Central and State governments and condemned the rise in price of fuel and cooking gas.

The legislators arrived by bullock-carts for the protest in front of the Assembly premises and charged the Puducherry government with accepting the alleged anti- people policies of the Central government.

Siva told the gathering before courting arrest that there was a move to privatise the electricity department. He said, ''The territorial government should strongly resist the Centre`s steps to private the power sector.'' Police were deployed in strength and intervened to arrest the legislators and the cadres of the DMK.