Gunmen shoot leading Thai government loyalist Kwanchai Praipana was hit in the arm and leg in a drive-by shooting outside his home Gunmen shot and wounded a leading Thai government loyalist on Wednesday, further stoking the country's political crisis as a state of emergency came into force in Bangkok. Kwanchai Praipana, part of the redshirt movement loyal to Yingluck Shinawatra, prime minister, was hit in the arm and leg in a drive-by shooting outside his home in the north-eastern town of Udon Thani. While Bangkok was calm, the apparent assassination attempt on Mr Kwanchai showed the potential for violence to spread through this divided country in the run-up to elections next month, which opposition protesters are trying to derail. Mr Kwanchai, an important leader in the northern heartlands of the premier and her brother Thaksin, her self-exiled predecessor, had warned this week that he and fellow loyalists would rise up and fight if the army intervened in the country's political struggle. The military - which ousted Mr Thaksin in 2006 and has launched 17 other attempted or successful coups since 1932 - is widely seen as sympathetic to the pro-establishment opposition now blockading main road junctions and government buildings in Bangkok. General Prayuth Chan-ocha, the army chief, urged talks to end the confrontation but added: "Whenever the conflict has gone to the point that it is not fixable, the soldiers have to fix it."" Ms Yingluck's administration sought to play down alarm caused by the declaration of a state of emergency in the capital for 60 days from Wednesday, saying the government would not use most of the powers under it and would not move against protesters, now 10 days into a "shutdown" of the city that has turned into a string of localised protests. Demonstrators again rallied in multiple locations after their leader, Suthep Thaugsuban, said they should maintain their campaign in the face of a decree that gives security forces wide-ranging authority to ban political gatherings, detain people and close off parts of the city. The government has mostly held back from confronting protesters during their two-month campaign, for fear of provoking the military. It says it imposed the emergency law only to give it the ability to deal with a swelling number of violent incidents, including two suspected grenade attacks on protesters in the past week that killed one person and wounded scores. The opposition campaign to oust Ms Yingluck's government and replace it with an unelected national ruling council is part of a long-running battle with Mr Thaksin and his allies, who have dominated Thai politics and elections for more than a dozen years thanks to their largesse in the country's vast rural areas. Mr Thaksin's enemies claim he has corrupted politics and invalidated the electoral system, while his loyalists retort that the opposition can't bear to lose at the polls yet again and so is attacking democracy itself. The Bank of Thailand voted on Wednesday against a second successive interest rate cut, issuing an upbeat statement that played down the widely feared prospect of a prolonged crisis harming southeast Asia's second-largest economy. The bank's monetary policy committee surprised economists with its four-to-three vote to keep its benchmark policy rate at 2.25 per cent, despite lowered estimates for fourth-quarter growth last year, sluggish export performance and the hit to private sector confidence caused by the political crisis. "The ongoing political situation poses risks to growth, but sound economic fundamentals should help the economy weather these short-term risks," said Prasarn Trairatvorakul, central bank governor. In addition, safeguarding financial stability remains a cornerstone for economic recovery in the period ahead.