Sushma Swaraj, BJP leaders court arrest against rising inflation

BHOPAL: Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and other senior BJP leaders today courted arrest as part of the party's nationwide agitation on rising inflation.

Squarely blaming the policies and "corruption" of the UPA Ministers for rising inflation in the country, Swaraj, former Chief Ministers Sunderlal Patwa and Kailash Joshi and state general secretary Arvind Menon courted arrest in front of the party headquarters.

Additional District Magistrate (ADM) Uma Shankar Bhargava declared the venue as "temporary jail" before announcing the arrest of the BJP leaders. Later, he announced their release from the place.

Earlier addressing the protestors, mostly women, Swaraj blamed the "UPA government's wrong policies and corruption of Ministers" as the main reason for the rising inflation.

"A minister alone was involved in the Rs 1.76 lakh crore 2G scam under this government," she alleged and also referred to other scams that took place under the UPA.

She also criticised the Centre for treating Opposition ruled states in a "partisan manner" and specially highlighted the case of Madhya Pradesh in this regard, specially on the issue of coal allocation, power, food grains under BPL, Indira Awas Kutir and gunny bags for storing wheat.

Before courting arrest, the Leader of Opposition demanded total rollback of hike in petrol prices and food articles and not to treat opposition-ruled states in a step-motherly way.