The Maharashtra bandh, called by the Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) to oppose the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) failed to evoke desired response on Friday, even as the protesters vandalised buses and indulged in violence at some places across the state.
In all, VBA and 35 other organisations had come together to organise the bandh. In the run up to and during the course of the bandh, the police had detained an estimated 3000 Dalit activists and others belonging to the organisations supporting the bandh as a precautionary measure.
The detained activists were, however, let off later in the night. VBA’s founder president Prakash Ambedkar claimed that the bandh was a success.”We have not forced anyone to join the bandh. Nor have workers indulged in violence. By and large, the bandh was a total success,” Ambedkar said, while talking to media persons in the evening.There was some impact of bandh in places like Mumbai, Thane, Ulhasnagar, Bhiwandi, Akola, Jalgaon, Baramati, Jalna, Nandurbar, Nashik Hingoli and Pune.
Shops and business establishments remained in most of these places. There were however, no reports of major disruptions from other parts of the state. Notwithstanding the claims to the contrary by Ambedkar, the VBA activists forced the shop keepers to shut down the shops in places like Chembur, Wadala, Mulund, Airoli, Ghatkopar, Govandi, Trombay and Kurla. However, normal life remained unaffected.
The protesters indulged in stone pelting and vandalised a BEST at Chembur in north-central Mumbai.
The driver, identified as Vilas B. Dabhade (53), was injured in the incident. He was admitted to the Shatabdi Hospital at Govandi. However, the passengers in the bus escaped unhurt.
There were reports of sporadic incidents of violence from some parts of the state. The incidents included creating blockades along the
roads and hurling of stones at buses.
In Mumbai, Thane and most other places across the state, normal life remained unaffected. The suburban trains – the life lines of Mumbai and surrounding satellite townships – ran normally, while the road traffic was also not hit by the bandh. In his interaction with the media, Amedhkar said: “Since the people are getting to know more and more about the dangers posed by the CAA, NRC and NPR, we received fairly good response for the bandh.
The CAA and NRC will not affected just Muslims, they will also affected a sizeable section of the Hindus across the country.
The people will find it difficult to prove their citizenship, because of lack of documents with them”.
Ambedkar said that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman would present a deficit budget in February. “In the normal course, the Government was to have raised a revenue of Rs 24 lakh crore during the financial year 2019-20. But, the revenue collection may not even Rs 9 lakh crore,” Ambedkar said.
