Maha Cong leaders including ministers detained during protest against ED action

Congress leaders including senior ministers of the Maharashtra government were detained by police on Thursday as they protested at Raj Bhavan here against the Enforcement Directorate's questioning of Rahul Gandhi.

Police took action as Congress leaders tried to remove barricades placed outside the Raj Bhavan gate during their protest march which started near the Hanging Garden in south Mumbai. State Congress president Nana Patole, PWD minister Ashok Chavan, revenue minister Balasaheb Thorat, Energy Minister Nitin Raut, Fisheries Minister Aslam Sheikh, Women and Child Welfare Minister Yashomati Thakur, School Education Minister Varsha Gaikwad, Medical Education Minister Amit Deshmukh, Minister of State for Agriculture Vishwajit Kadam and Mumbai Congress chief Bhai Jagtap were among those detained.

They were taken to Azad Maidan police station and released after some time, said a police official.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi appeared before the ED in Delhi on Wednesday for the third consecutive day of questioning in the National Herald money laundering case, with the agency seeking answers about his ''personal role'' in taking decisions with regard to the media organisation and its owner Young Indian.

Earlier in the day, speaking to reporters, Patole said the party was protesting against the ''dictatorial attitude of the Narendra Modi government'', and attempts to ''supress the opposition's voice'' will not succeed.

The BJP government at the Centre was trying to intimidate the Congress leadership by using government agencies but Congress is not scared of such pressure tactics, he said.

''Rahul Gandhi has become the voice of the country as he has been taking up people's issues and questioning the Modi government. Congress workers are taking an aggressive stand following this vindictive action against our leader,'' Patole added.

Ministers, MPs, MLAs and women activists of the party were being beaten up by police as Congress has taken to the streets, he alleged.

Minister Thorat said Congress workers have stood up against the central government's ''repression.'' ''Through this protest march, we are trying to convey this dissatisfaction to the Modi government. It is reprehensible to harass a family who sacrificed everything for the country,'' he said.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi (who too has been summoned by the ED in the case) and Rahul Gandhi will ''endure this repression and bounce back stronger,'' Thorat said.

''It is our expectation that the Governor will convey our sentiments to the Union government, he added.

Ashok Chavan said the party leadership was being ''suppressed by implicating them in false cases.'' Meanwhile, a release from the Raj Bhavan claimed that Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari had agreed to meet a Congress delegation led by Thorat on Thursday afternoon, but the appointment was cancelled later on a request from Thorat's office.