New Delhi, Jul 4 (IANS): The activists of the Mahila Congress on Tuesday staged a protest outside the BJP headquarters over soaring prices of vegetables and other essential items.

About 50 activists of the Mahila Congress led by its acting president Netta D’Souza led the flash protest over inflation outside BJP headquarters and raised slogans against the central government.

They also carried an effigy with a garland of tomatoes, whose prices have skyrocketed in last few days. However, they were soon detained by the Delhi Police.

Slamming the government over the manhandling of the Mahila Congress workers by the male Delhi Police officers, Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh said: “Delhi Police under Home Minister Amit Shah does not miss any opportunity to break rules, conventions and procedures laid out in the Police manual to intimidate and harass protesters raising their voice against the Modi government.”

“The entire nation witnessed how they harassed our women champion wrestlers in May. Today they have broken all protocols by sending male officers to manhandle Mahila Congress workers protesting intolerable rise in prices of essential commodities. They were only exercising their democratic right to agitate lawfully,” Ramesh said.

Meanwhile, D’Souza said that the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has completely failed to control the skyrocketing inflation while his ministers have maintained silence on the matter.

Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also trained her guns at the central government over inflation and unemployment and said: “Inflation is at its peak, BJP government has no way to provide relief to the public. Unemployment is at its peak, the BJP government has no way to provide employment to the youth.”

She said, “The BJP government is zero in the name of work, so there is a preparation to go among the public by buying and selling on the basis of price.”