Chhattisgarh witnessed near total shutdown over the Congress party’s call for a State-wide bandh on Friday to protest Maoist attack on the Road Opening Party (ROP) leading to death of 15 security personnel and a civilian in Jeeram valley of Bastar on March 11 in the State.
The bandh received an active support from virtually all traders and owners of commercial establishments and shops in the cities and towns as in some of the regions even the autorickshaws and buses remained off the roads.
The success of the bandh was largely due to the public sentiment of paying tributes to the martyrs who laid down their life fighting the insurgents in Bastar.
The bandh was entirely incident free with traders and owners of business establishments voluntarily shutting down their establishments without any hard coercion by the Congress party leaders and workers in the entire State .
In Raipur city, the Congress leaders and workers walked through the streets in the morning hours while asking some of the shopkeepers who had opened their establishments to shut their shops which they obliged immediately. The Raipur city mayor Kiranmayi Nayak went around with the Congress party supporters while asking the shopkeepers including vegetable and tea vendors to close shop and join in the protest and to pay tributes to the martyrs.
The autorickshaws and buses plied normally in the city without any interruption by the Congress party workers throughout the day.
The Congress party had already kept hospitals, schools, colleges and chemist shops out of the ambit of their bandh call in the State.
The impact of bandh in cities and towns of Bastar division was seen with a total shutdown of all commercial establishments in Jagdalpur, Bijapur and other district headquarters and smaller towns.
The Congress party workers in Jagdalpur city had announced of the bandh call two days in advance while moving through the city using loudspeakers.
The Congress party’s city unit President Mithilesh Swarnkar stated in Jagdalpur that the bandh was to pay tributes to the martyrs and make the ruling Government realise its responsibility towards ending Maoist violence in the State. The Bastar Chamber of Commerce and Industries offered full support to the bandh in the region. In Durg, the Rajya Sabha MP and Congress party’s National Treasurer Motilal Vora himself walked through the streets alongwith party workers urging people to close shops during the morning hours.
Elsewhere in the State such as Bhilai, Mahasamund, Dhamtari, Rajnandgaon and Bilaspur besides other cities and towns all the commercial establishments remained closed. Elaborate security arrangements were made in all the cities and towns with a heavy deployment of personnel to prevent any untoward incident.