Mixed response to Bharat Bandh

New Delhi: Sporadic incidents of violence were reported on Monday during a Congress-led Opposition sponsored “Bharat Bandh” against spiralling fuel prices that disrupted normal life mainly in Bihar, Kerala, Karnataka, Assam and Odisha.

Offices and educational institutes remained closed and vehicles were off the roads in states hit by the bandh that drew a mixed response.

A three-year-old girl died in Bihar’s Jehanabad district which the BJP alleged was due to delay in finding a vehicle to take her to hospital. The allegation was denied by the local administration.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi, making his first public appearance after returning from the Kailash Mansarovar yatra, led the bandh in Delhi and targeted the Narendra Modi government at a protest rally at Ramlila maidan.

While questioning the Prime Minister’s silence on spiralling fuel prices, Mr Gandhi said that the combined Opposition would defeat the BJP in the next Lok Sabha election. The bandh was called by 21 Opposition parties that included the Congress, its allies and the Left to demand the inclusion of petrol and diesel under the GST, which would make oil prices drop by about Rs 15 to Rs 18 a litre.

Scores of activists from the Congress and other Opposition parties were detained in several states for forcibly trying to enforce the bandh, according to reports from the state capitals.

While the Congress and other Opposition parties claimed the bandh was a success, the ruling BJP claimed it was a flop.

In Delhi, Mr Gandhi marched from Rajghat, where he paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi and offered holy water from the Mansarovar lake, to Ramlila maidan with other Opposition and Congress leaders. At the Ramlila maidan rally, he was joined by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Nationalist Congress Party’s Sharad Pawar, Lokta-ntrik Janata Dal’s Sharad Yadav, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, among other leaders. Mr Gandhi said that under Mr Modi’s rule hatred is being spread and country is being divided.

“What the country wants to hear, what the youth want to hear, PM Narendra Modi does not talk about. I don’t know which world he is in, he keeps giving speeches,” Mr Gandhi said. Mr Gandhi took a dig at Mr Modi’s common refrain that no development took place in the country in 70 years under Congress governments and claim that the BJP-led government would do that in four years.

“It is true, what he has done in four years has not happened in 70 years. Wherever you see, one Indian is fighting another. Wherever you go, they divide people — one religion with another, one caste with another and one state pitted against the other,” added Mr Gandhi.

The Congress president also criticised the note ban. “The PM claimed black money will be eradicated. But is has turned out that back money of all thieves has turned white. Then came ‘Gabbar Singh Tax’ (a term he uses for GST)... Corruption has risen because of that, ask any businessman. But Narendra Modi does not speak about it. This is the truth of the country,” he said.

Former PM Manmohan Singh lashed out at the Modi government saying, “The Modi government has done a lot which is not in national interest. Now it has crossed the limit and time is coming to change it. Voices from across the country can be heard saying people are unhappy with the government.”

CPI(M) chief Sitaram Yechury, courted arrest at Parliament Street police station in New Delhi.

Protesters targeted buses, including some school vehicles, and disrupted rail traffic at some places in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, officials said. At some places, petrol pumps were also targeted.

Schools, colleges and shopping establishments remained closed at a number of places in Maharashtra, MP, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat, officials added. In Odisha, train services were disrupted at many places as Congress workers blocked railway tracks to enforce the bandh. At least 10 trains were cancelled.