Bhubaneswar: Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) has criticised yesterday’s incident in Gobardhanpur under Brahmagiri Assembly constituency, where as many as 35 Congress workers were injured when police resorted to lathi charge, rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse them. The incident had taken place during chief minister Mr Naveen Patnaik’s tour to lay foundation of a canal project. The Congress men tried to submit a memorandum to him, and when denied the opportunity started protesting. The police then lathi charged and resorted to rubber bullets and tear gas to ward them off.

A delegation comprising PCC president Mr Jaydev Jena, local MLA Mr LB Mohapatra, former Pipili MLA Mr Judhisthir Samantaray and District Congress Committee (DCC) president Mr Uttam Acharya visited the injured workers, who are under treatment in hospital today. Coming down heavily on the chief minister, the delegation said that it is really unfortunate that the chief minister is on a spree of laying foundation stones for various projects, without budgetary provisions for most of them.

“Is it a crime for the citizens to want to hand over a memorandum to the CM? It is a crime to want to meet the CM?” said Mr Jena while describing the incident as "unfortunate".
“The chief minister does not have faith in democracy, which resulted in the police brutality,” charged Mr Jena and warned that Congress would not sit silently if similar things take place in future.