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Shoppers at New Delhi’s Khan Market during the bandh on Thursday. Picture by Prem Singh
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Sept. 20: Bharat Bandh? Not in Delhi and Mumbai.
Political rivals Left and the BJP shared the dais in Delhi in a rare show of unity, but in the two capitals — national and commercial — today’s shutdown was an open and not-so-shut case.
For the common man, it was business as usual.
Schools and other institutions remained open today in Delhi, while public transport, including taxis and auto-rickshaws, plied normally in Mumbai, though the roads saw less traffic than usual.
“This is all grandstanding,” said Delhi hawker Rajesh Kumar, clearly dismissive of the Left-Right unity against the Centre’s decisions like the hike in diesel prices and allowing FDI in multi-brand retail.
But the show of camaraderie was hard to miss.
CPI leader A.B. Bardhan and CPM politburo member Sitaram Yechury shared the stage with BJP veteran M.M. Joshi and party president Nitin Gadkari at Jantar Mantar. Later, Gadkari gave rousing speeches at Chandni Chowk, while Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and CPM general secretary Prakash Karat courted arrest at Parliament Street police station.
Not many were impressed. “Mamata Banerjee had the guts to do it (decide on withdrawing from a government whose policies she differed with),” said Suhasini Singh, who took the Metro to reach her office in central Delhi. “Instead of these bandhs, which serve no purpose, the Opposition should take a stand like her. No wonder, no one in the city responded to the bandh.”
Even school kids seemed to have cocked a snook at the bandh brigade. Many waited in front of their homes for the school bus.
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Traffic on a Mumbai street on Thursday. (PTI) |
The bandh itself wrapped up quickly enough. By 3 in the afternoon, the protest site at Jantar Mantar was free of banners and party flags.
Many of the big shops that were closed earlier in the day opened by afternoon. “I kept my shop shut because the outer façade is all glass. Even if someone throws a stone at my shop, it will cost me lakhs in repairs,” said a shopkeeper in Connaught Place, where big establishments like KFC decided to down shutters till late afternoon.
According to industry body CII, the nation-wide strike is estimated to cause a loss of Rs 12,500 crore to the economy.
In Maharashtra, particularly Mumbai, the bandh wasn’t much of a success without the support of the Shiv Sena and the MNS, which had refused to back the strike in the middle of the Ganesh Chaturthi festival.
Some buses were damaged in Thane and Pune by BJP activists.
Police in Mumbai detained over 100 activists, including BJP leaders Gopinath Munde, Vinod Tawde and Raj Purohit, who tried to put a symbolic lock on the state secretariat, sources said.
All of them were let off immediately, an official said.
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