Udupi : Members of the district unit of Congress staged a dharna near the Town Hall here on Thursday against, what they termed, the anti-people policies of the Union government.

Addressing the protesters, Vinay Kumar Sorake, former Minister, said that the Union government had recklessly merged public sector banks.

The undivided Dakshina Kannada which was the birthplace of five nationalised banks, was now left with only one. This was done even though the earlier merger of Vijaya Bank with the Bank of Baroda was a failure.

The Union government was systematically using the central agencies such as the CBI, Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax Department to harass politicians belonging to the Opposition parties. The Union government had proved that it was doing “vendetta politics” by getting the Congress leaders P. Chidambaram and D.K. Shivakumar arrested.

The hike in the fines for traffic violations had affected drivers of all vehicles including buses, trucks, vans and two-wheelers. The goods truck and van drivers were being harassed by traffic police.

Raghupati Bhat, BJP MLA, had promised to resolve the sand extraction problem within a month of getting elected. But so far, no action had been taken on it, Mr. Sorake said.

U.R. Sabhapathy, former MLA, said that such was the authoritarian nature of the Modi government that even IAS officers were feeling stifled. The resignation of three IAS officers within a span of a couple of months had held a mirror to the governance of the BJP.

India was the leading beef exporter in the world. But the BJP, which spoke of the cow all the time, had done nothing to stop it. It was now in power for six years at the Centre but had done nothing to stop the slaughter of cows or brought any law against it, he said.

Veronica Cornelio, Congress leader, said that the actual damage due to rains and floods in North Karnataka was estimated at Rs. 14,000 crore, but the State had sought only Rs. 3,500 crore. Yet the Central government had not released a single paisa so far, she said.

Ashok Kumar Kodavoor, Geeta Wagle, Sarala Kanchan, Janardhan Bhandarkar, Vishwas Amin, Bhaskar Kidiyoor, Shashidhar Shetty, Congress leaders, were present.