AGP president Brindaban Goswami and his predecessor, Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, address party members during the Dispur Chalo programme in Guwahati on Monday. Picture by Eastern Projections

Guwahati, March 28: The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) today took its battle against the ruling Congress to the streets with the rank and file of the Opposition party storming Dispur in a massive show of strength and unity.

Party president Brindaban Goswami and former chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta were initially in the same vehicle, waving enthusiastically at the party activists and egging them on. The AGP claimed the turnout was over 15,000.

Buoyed by the support to the ?Dispur Chalo? programme, party leaders said the oust-Congress campaign would become progressively intense over the next few months. ?This is the beginning of the end of the corrupt Tarun Gogoi government. It is time for everyone to join the movement,? Goswami said while addressing the gathering from his vehicle in front of the Assembly Gate in Dispur.

The AGP workers laid siege to the capital complex for nearly an hour, while police stopped traffic on GS Road for nearly three hours.

Goswami exhorted party workers to expose the ?Congress misrule? and the Gogoi government?s alleged failures. When it was his turn to speak, Mahanta asked them to put up a united fight against the Congress.

The AGP congregation then marched to Dispur in three groups, led by Goswami, Mahanta and senior party leader Durga Das Boro. Goswami proceeded in a Tata Sumo, while Mahanta was in an open three-wheeler (auto-van) with his retinue of Black Cat commandos close on his heels.

Carrying posters of the chief minister dressed like a police constable, AGP activists shouted slogans against the Gogoi government for the constable recruitment fiasco and its failure to maintain law and order. Some of the slogans were against parliamentary affairs minister Bharat Narah, accused of links with an Ulfa militant who had a hand in the Independence Day blast in Dhemaji last year. Several schoolchildren were among the victims in that incident. The AGP activists also shouted slogans on the oil-pilferage scandal and the coal scam.

Unlike the BJP?s ?Dispur Gherao? programme a couple of weeks ago, the AGP?s march to the capital complex did not meet with any resistance. The party was armed with an order from Gauhati High Court, which restrained the government from preventing the procession unless it posed a threat to law and order.

The administration had pulled out all stops to foil the BJP?s protest. The police even caned the protesters and burst teargas shells.

Minister of state for planning and development Himanta Biswa Sarma said the government would ?examine? whether the AGP had violated the high court?s order and take necessary action. ?The AGP blocked the Assembly Gate for nearly an hour. This needs to be taken into account,? he said.

Describing the AGP rally as a ?flop show?, Sarma claimed the party failed to mobilise even 100 workers from each of its units.

In the Assembly, AGP members staged a walkout after Speaker Prithibi Majhi disallowed a discussion on the abduction of a leader of the All Tai Ahom Students Union from the city on March 25.