The ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) constituents – Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress – and other friendly parties flexed their muscles on Tuesday, as they ensured a near total closure in rural and semi-urban areas of the state in response to the “Bandh Bandh” called by farmer organisations and the national opposition parties to demand scrapping three recent farm laws.
A day ahead of the meeting Sharad Pawar-led Opposition delegation’s meeting with President Ram Nath Kovind over the farm bills issue, the MVA-ruled Maharashtra effectively lodged a protest against the BJP-led Union government over the controversial farm laws and extended its support to the pongoing farmers’ agitation.
On a day when the bandh organisers had spared essential services from its purview, rural and semi-urban areas in coastal Konkan districts of Thane, Palghar, Ratnagiri, Raigad, Sindhudurg, several parts of other regions like Marathwada, North Maharashtra, Western Maharashtra and Vidarbha joined the bandh.
While no untoward incidents were reported from any part of the state, the farmers and workers of different political parties resorted to “rasta rokos” in various parts of the state, including Thane, Palghar, Aurangabad, Solapur, Nashik, Pune, Buldhana h and some other districts in the state.
All Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs) in the state wore a deserted look with the agitating farmers staying away from these places. However, normal life remained in major towns and cities in the state where shops, hotels and business establishments remained open. The bandh had no impact on the life in Mumbai, where the Central and Western Railways operated the suburban train services normally.
Apart from the ruling MVA constituents like the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress, the other parties like Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Vikas Aghadi, the CPI, CPM, Dalit parties, political outfits linked to farmer organisations, students organisations and the Trade Unions and bank unions had supported Saturday Bandh.
While the NCP and Congress organized demonstrations in Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune and other cities, a large number of Gurudwaras and Punjabi associations organised human chains between Mumbai and Navi Mumbai . Several parties joined together to organized a motorcycle rally at Thane, a satellite city of Mumbai.
At Ralefgan-Siddhi in Ahmednagar district, the 83-year old social activist Anna Hazare joined the farmers’ agitation by holding a day-long token hunger strike at the village temple.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee Chairman and Revenue Minister Balasaheb Thorat said that there was outrage across the country against these laws and the agitation of farmers has now become a mass agitation and would continue their agitation till their demands were not met.
As part of the bandh, Thorat staged a dharna near the statue of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in Mumbai. “These laws are not in the interest of the farmers but have been brought in for the benefit of a handful of moneylenders, industrialists and stockists. This will be detrimental to both the farmers and the consumers,” Throat said.
While Sena’s Minister of State Abdul Sattar dubbed the three farm laws as a ‘Hitler-style’ assault on farmers which was never resorted to by any government or even the British rulers in the past, Congress Minister Vijay Wadettiwar asked the BJP to forsake its arrogance and repeal the bills forthwith.