Mangaluru: Leaders and members of the District Congress Committee (DCC) staged a protest in front of the deputy commissioner’s office on Wednesday, objecting to the arrest to the arrest of former minister D K Shivakumar.

Braving heavy rain, the protesters shouted slogans against the Central government. They also shouted slogans in favour of Shivakumar.

The Congress leaders also burnt the effigies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

When they tried to block the road, the police took the Congress leaders, including former minister B Ramanath Rai, MLC Ivan D’Souza and others, into custody.

The party leaders were released later.

Former minister Ramanath Rai, addressing the gathering, accused the BJP-led Union government of launching a political vendetta against the former minister Shivakumar. “In order to hide the failures of the government, BJP government is targeting Congress leaders. When B S Yediyurappa was involved in horse trading in the name of Operation Kamala, officials from ED and income tax were silent. They should have conducted an inquiry into the horse trading,” he said.

“ED officials have been harassing Shivakumar for the past four days. In spite of Shivakumar cooperating with the officials during inquiry, the ED officials claimed that he had failed to cooperate,” alleged former MLA J R Lobo.

MLCs Ivan D’Souza, Harish Kumar, former MLA Shakuntala Shetty, Abhayachandra Jain, AICC member P V Mohan and others were present.