PANAJI
Leaders and workers of the Congress party were reportedly detained on Sunday while on their way to Farmagudi in Ponda where Union Home Minister Amit Shah addressed a public meeting of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in preparation for next year's general election.
Congress spokesperson Amarnath Panjikar claimed he was held at his sister's place while GPCC president Amit Patkar and some other Congress leaders including Captain Viriato Fernandes were detained by the police in Corlim on the Panaji-Ponda highway.
Panjikar also claimed that he had been followed by the police since Sunday morning and held at his sister's place in Old Goa from where he was not allowed to move out.
He also claimed that Goa Mahila Congress president Beena Naik and other leaders were detained at Old Goa and in Ponda.
Meanwhile, in Ponda, a few kilometres away from the venue of Shah's meeting, a group of Congressmen including former State president, Girish Chodankar, Goa Pradesh Youth Congress president Joel Andrade and some other leaders held a demonstration raising the vexed Mhadei issue through slogans.
The Congress had dared the ruling BJP to show guts to profess Goa's interests in the Mhadei issue in Shah's presence in the State.
Shah's statement in January on Mhadei during a political rally in Belagavi, Karnataka which is going to polls next month, had stirred a hornet's nest here in Goa over the vexed imbroglio.
BJP government at the Centre has resolved the long-standing dispute between Goa and Karnataka over Mhadei waters and cleared diversion to Karnataka to satisfy the thirst of farmers, Shah had said at the Belagavi meeting triggering a slugfest between the State government and the Opposition.
