Activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal staged a dharna in the garden in front of the Mahatma Gandhi statue on the premises of Town Hall here on Monday protesting against the arrest of VHP leaders by the Uttar Pradesh administration.
Addressing a gathering on the occasion M. B. Puranik, regional working president, VHP, alleged that the Uttar Pradesh government and the Union government were preventing the VHP from taking up ‘Chaurasi Kos Yatra’ to appease a certain section of people in the society. The government should allow the VHP to continue with the yatra, he said.
He said that the Union government should pass a law for building Ram mandir at Ayodhya. If the government did not allow Hindus to build the mandir the VHP would intensify its agitation, he said.
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Meanwhile, in a memorandum to the President of India submitted through the Deputy Commissioner of Dakshina Kannada he said that preventing the yatra amounted to curbing the fundamental rights of Hindus. Anybody could take out padayatra in the country and it was the right of people.
He alleged that the Uttar Pradesh administration was anti-democratic and had insulted Hindus. The activists shouted slogans against the Uttar Pradesh government and the Union government.