In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP workers today clashed with police at Kanth in Moradabad district, while defying the ban to organize the Mahapanchayat. The District Magistrate of Moradabad, Chandrakant was injured in stone-pelting by protesters. Three BJP MPs and and one MLA were detained by the police, who tried to protest the ban on Mahapanchayat. The administration took tough measures to stop the BJP from holding the proposed Mahapanchayat in Kanth that has seen communal tension in recent weeks.

Around a thousand of BJP workers later tried to block the Kanth Moradabad rail line and clashed with the police. Railways sources said, trains are now being diverted. There is massive police presence in the area and gatherings of more than four or five people have been banned.

Congress has condemned BJP leader Sangeet Som for trying to defy a ban on holding a mahapanchayat at Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh today. Addressing media in New Delhi, party spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said it was an attempt to again inflame communal passions in the State. Mr Surjewala asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take stern action against Som.

Som is an accused in the Muzaffarnagar riots of last year.

On reports that Rajasthan government may scrap Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and run it as a guarantee scheme, Surjewala asked the Prime Minister to make his stand clear whether he agrees with Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje on the matter.

The spokesperson said, Modi-led government has failed to contain inflation and is only misleading people by giving excuses. He said the government has made a mockery of people's mandate as it came to power on the promise of curbing prise rise.