The police today took 68 Congress supporters in preventive custody before Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik undertook a one-day visit to Ganjam district where he inaugurated and laid foundation stones of various projects.
While 32 Congress supporters were detained at Chhatrapur, police held up 29 others at Kabisurya Nagara and seven from Silk City of Berhampur.
All of them were released after the chief minister's departure from the district, police said.
Senior Congress leader and former Union minister Chandra Sekhar Sahu condemned the police action against the Congress supporters ahead of the chief minister's visit.
Similarly, police have detained at least 10 agitating block-grant teachers, who were preparing to show placards to the chief minister during his visit to Berhampur.
The teachers from various areas of the district assembled and attempted to show placards even as the chief minister passed on the road. They demanded abolition of the block-grant system of teachers payment.
"We had staged dharana at Bhubaneswar earlier. But the government did not fulfil our demand. Since the Chief Minister hailed from Ganjam, we are protesting during his visit," said one of the agitators.
"They have not taken permission from the administration for protest. We are verifying about their actual intention," said SP (Berhampur) Sarthak Sarangi.
During his whirlwind tour to three places of Ganjam district - Berhampur, Chhatrapur and Polasara, the chief minister inaugurated as many as eight different projects and laid foundation stones for five others.
The major projects which were inaugurated included new tehsil office, child development project office, block statistical office building, skill development institute at Chhatrapur, Rs 12.87-crore new bus-terminal and around Rs 2 crore new bus depot at Haladiapadara on the outskirt of Berhampur and model school building at Hatioto and children park at Polasara.
Patnaik laid foundation stones of projects like lawn tennis court and path-way in Chhatrapur stadium, approach road for the railway over bridge at Haladiapadara, improvement for the Ramalingam tank in Berhampur and second campus for Khallikote cluster university.
