SURAT, July 12: Attacking the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the State for what they called a ``pathetic performance,'' city and state Congress leaders said here on Sunday that while the government had miserably failed to tackle the prices of essential commodities, the law and order situation had deteriorated.In a more serious allegation, State Congress leader and former MP Haroobhai Mehta stated that the government was doing nothing to control communal clashes in South Gujarat. The BJP was, in fact, shielding the guilty by not acting swiftly and impartially when dealing with the sensitive issue, he added.As a mark of protest against all this issues, including the ``unlawful membership'' of half of the members of the standing committee and the civic body's failure in containing epidemics, city and district Congress committee members and party workers on July 20 will stage a rally, that will begin from Kot Safil Road and culminate at the collectorate, where a memorandum will be submitted.A similar programme, expressing displeasure at the BJP's failure to equalise the rates of the Surat Electricity Company and the Gujarat Electricity Board, despite an assurance to this effect during its election campaign, will be taken up on August 3.Congress members will also lock the SEC premises after the rally, Thakore Naik, city Congress chief said, adding that he expected at least 10,000 party workers to participate in both rallies.Naik also alleged that the BJP, instead of wiping out corruption, as it had promised, had literally regularised it. Citing the Anu Mallik Nite held here on Saturday as an example, Naik said that the party had concrete information that the district administration had resorted to unfair means to raise funds for the event.``The collector is a dalal of the BJP. We have information that Rs 20 lakhs were spent on the artistes, while the collector claims that they agreed to perform for free,'' Congress leader Kadior Pirzada alleged.Congress MLA Siddharth Patel also added that at least a dozen deputy collectors and mamlatdars had confessed that the funds they were supposed to raise could not possibly come through fair means.Mehta, while expressing displeasure over the way the Bardoli incident was handled, said that it was unfair of State Law Minister Hemant Chapatwala to only meet Hindu community leaders on his official visit to the town.
