Police arrested Dravidar Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) working president MK Stalin and hundreds of party workers as they tried to picket the Raj Bhavan on Saturday morning.

The opposition party was protesting the arrest of 192 DMK workers who greeted governor Banwarilal Purohit with black flags during his visit to Namakkal on Friday.

Stalin launched the rally from Saidapet around 10 am but was stopped by the police near the Saidapet Court building, about 600 metres from the governor’s official residence. Following this, party cadres staged a sit-in protest on Sardar Vallabhai Patel Road for over an hour.

Stalin told reporters that the governor’s frequent review meetings in various districts were a challenge to the state’s autonomy, and that was why DMK workers turned up with black flags. “In keeping with the party’s decision, a few hundred DMK workers from the Namakkal district unit showed black flags to the governor on Friday. However, the Namakkal police arrested 192 of them and remanded them in Salem prison. This is highly condemnable. We will continue protesting until our party workers are released,” he said.

The DMK leader also dismissed the governor’s statement that he was only “executing the Union government’s orders”, and demanded his resignation. “Showing black flags is an accepted way of protesting in a democracy. But imprisoning people for such protests is absolutely against democratic values. Chief minister Edappadi Palanisamy and deputy chief minister O Paneerselvam are not opposing the governor because they are controlled by the BJP,” said Stalin.

Former Union minister A Raja and legislators M Subramanian, Renganathan, J Anbazhagan and Vaagai Chandrasekaran were also arrested along with Stalin in Saidapet. Soon afterwards, DMK activists in various parts of the state rose up in protest.

Guindy police inspector NS Kumar said Stalin and the others were arrested because they had taken out the rally without proper permission, creating a disturbance in the area. “We arrested Stalin along with eight MLAs. As of now, they are being detained in a hall near Saidapet. Further action will be taken as per the directions of superiors in the police department,” he added.