Gandhinagar, Dec 8 (IANS): The opposition Congress in Gujarat has claimed that Tuesday's Bharat Bandh in support of the agitating farmers was successful throughout the country as also in Gujarat.

While the ruling BJP in Gujarat has claimed the Bandh was a failure in the state, the Congress said that the Bandh had a "huge response" in rural areas, agrarian communities, and associated trades.

Jairajsinh Parmar, the regional spokesperson of the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) said, "Comparing the cities of Gujarat with the rural markets is totally out of context. The Bharat Bandh has been a total success in Gujarat as far as agrarian community is concerned. Whereas in some major cities of the state, the normal commuting was unaffected, if you look at all the rural areas of the state, the situation had come to a standstill."

"The Bandh received a very good response from every section of the society, including social, political, trading, labour, transport and other organisations and all supported this Bandh and I thank them all from the bottom of my heart," said Paresh Dhanani, Leader of Opposition in the Gujarat Assembly.

"So despite the government, utilising all its resources, the Bharat Bandh was a roaring success, even though many of the APMCs are influenced by the BJP and many of the office bearers are from the BJP, despite that and despite using their influence on the chairman of the APMC, the secretary of the APMCs, the traders, to keep open the markets, none of the farmers went to these APMCs to sell their produce on Tuesday. One should just check how many transactions were carried out at all the APMCs in the state and you will know whether the Bandh was successful or not," added Parmar.

Over 5,000 Congress workers were detained from various parts of the state who were supporting the Bandh. Most of the leaders like district presidents, district Panchayat presidents from Congress, Tehsil presidents, Tehsil Panchayat presidents were detained or under house arrest since Monday night. Almost all the legislators of Congress, most of them living in urban areas were also under house arrest since Monday. Dhanani was detained by the Amreli police in the afternoon.