Highlights
- Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government is supporting the bandh
- Everything will be closed except for essential services
- Shiv Sena will take part in full force in the bandh
New Delhi:
Shops will remain shut across Maharashtra today as the Maha Vikas Aghadi or MVA government has called a bandh in solidarity with farmers in Uttar Pradesh, a week after eight people died in violence in UP’s Lakhimpur Kheri during a farmers’ protest.
- The Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government comprising the Shiv Sena, Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party or NCP is supporting the bandh. In fact, the state government itself announced the bandh at a joint press conference of the three parties.
- “I request 12 crore people of Maharashtra to support the farmers. Support means all of you join the bandh and stop your work for a day,” Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik told reporters.
- The state government said everything will be closed except for essential services. The Agricultural Produce Market Committee or subzi mandi will also be shut.
- Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut said his party will take part in “full force” in the bandh. “All the three parties will actively participate in the bandh. What happened in Lakhimpur Kheri was a murder of the Constitution, a violation of the law and a conspiracy to kill farmers of the country,” Mr Raut told reporters.
- The Mumbai Police have made a plan to ensure people are not inconvenienced due to the bandh. Policemen will be deployed at strategic points. Three companies of the Central Reserve Police Force, 500 Home Guards and 700 from other forces will help the Mumbai Police in maintain law and order.
- A union of traders in Maharashtra that earlier objected to the state government calling a bandh on Monday has decided to support the bandh. “After the request of Shiv Sena and other party leaders, we have decided to keep shops closed till 4 pm in support of the bandh call by the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in protest against killing of Farmers,” Viren Shah, chief of Federation of Retail Traders’ Welfare Association (FRTWA), said in an amended statement on Sunday.
- The traders’ union had earlier said they are only limping back to business after intermittent lockdowns amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the bandh would hit their earnings. “We have suffered huge losses for the past 18 months due to lockdown. Our business is slowly picking up. In middle of the festival season when customers have started coming out to shop, let us do our business peacefully. We appeal to the government to allow retail businesses to remain open. We hope that shopkeepers are not harassed or forced to remain shut,” Mr Shah had said.
- The traders appear, however, to be stuck in a political crossfire, as the BJP has said it will not allow “forced closure of shops” to support the bandh. “If shopkeepers are forced to close shops tomorrow by any of the MVA karyakartas, they will have to face BJP karyakartas. Police should ensure no one is forced or else there will be a law and order situation, which is not our responsibility,” Maharashtra BJP leader Nitesh Rane tweeted.
- Union Minister Ajay Mishra’s son Ashish Mishra had been named in a police case filed by farmers who said he drove into a gathering of slogan-shouting demonstrators amid a peaceful black-flag protest last Sunday.
- Ashish Mishra was produced before a court on Saturday night, days after intense pressure build up on police inaction even after a murder case was filed. The Supreme Court had also pulled up the UP Police for not doing their job properly.
