Mixed response to Bharat Bandh in Maharashtra as Sena remains ‘neutral’

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, September 10

With the Shiv Sena staying ‘neutral’, the impact of today’s Bharat Bandh was limited in Mumbai and surrounding areas though normal life was disrupted in different parts of Maharashtra.

Shops and other business establishments in most parts of Mumbai remained open and road, rail and metro services functioned normally for most part of the day except for some minor disruptions in the morning.

According to Western Railway officials, train services at suburban Andheri railway station was disrupted as protesters squatted on the tracks.

The police said they detained Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam and his party colleagues for disrupting public transport. They were released later in the afternoon.

Cadres of Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena were seen moving around Dadar and Parel in central Mumbai where they forced shops and business establishments to down shutters.

However, there was no violence and the MNS workers were dispersed, police said. At a few places, protesters threw stones at BEST buses damaging their windscreens.

However, officials from the transport body said services continued without disruption.

Only petrol pumps across Mumbai remained shut till late afternoon fearing violence.

A spokesman for the petrol pump owners’ association said its members were afraid of the facilities being attacked by angry protesters upset with soaring fuel prices.

The impact of the Bharat Bandh was, however, more felt in the interiors of Maharashtra.

In Aurangabad people came out in bullock carts to protest the hike in fuel prices.

Big processions of people were reported in Thane, Pune, Nashik, Nanded, Parbhani, Kolhapur, Ratnagiri and other places.

In western Maharashtra, where the NCP and farmers’ party Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana were supporting the bandh, the shutdown was almost total, according to police.

Meanwhile, Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamna said the opposition parties waited too long to mobilise the people against soaring prices.