Crowd caned after CM's yatra speech at Morbi

MORBI: The seventh phase of BJP''s Gaurav Yatra ran into trouble here on Sunday night forcing the police to resort to a mild lathi-charge soon after Chief Minister Narendra Modi completed his high-voltage speech and the musical orchestra of Mahesh-Naresh took over to hold the audience.
The unexpectedly big turnout of people, mostly to hear the orchestra, which had started their programme much before the Gaurav Yatra arrived, turned restive and culminated in a free-forall as ''chappals'' and chairs were flung by the crowd.
The second part of the musical nite, which was to start immediately after Modi left, had to be cancelled due to the trouble.
About six halogen lamps came down crashing leading to partial darkness at the venue. Fire broke out on the main stage, which was occupied by Modi minutes earlier, because of a short-circuit reportedly caused by the flying missiles.
Sensing trouble, members of the orchestra also threwa huge speaker at the crowd fortunately missing the people who had gathered at the venue. Morbi legislator Kanti Amrutiya, who had organised the show, was also visibly upset with the trouble and in a fit of rage, threw a microphone at the crowd.
This sparked off more trouble in the crowd, and Amrutiya, a close aide of Modi, came down fromthe dais and slapped some of the volunteers. However, he later denied of having slapped the volunteers and said, "I was trying to disperse the crowd".
Earlier the chief minister continued his attack on Sonia Gandhi and General Pervez Musharraf. He also attacked the state Congress leaders for visiting the United States recently and accused them of trying to get foreign funding for the polls.
He said that no amount of funds would be able to change the fortunes of the Congress.
Modi went for "self praise" often during the course of his 50-minute speech and mentioned how he went to Lal Chowk in Srinagar on January 26, 1992, and unfurled the tri-colour.
(He had actually accompanied Murli Manohar Joshi on his Kanyakumari to Kashmir yatra). In another instance, Modi said, "Till I am there, I will not allow the Pakistani president to fulfil his dream of installing a government favourable to him."
However, many in the crowd started leaving the venue even as he was speaking. The chief minister interrupted his speech twice to allow the people to leave in large groups. He even lost his cool once and shouted, "Let them leave if they want to leave."