Does rasta roko serve any purpose in public interest?

One such traveller, Bhamy V Shenoy of Mysore Grahakara Parishat, who also suffered the inconvenience wonders whether such strategies produce results to those unfortunate farmers.

In a release, Shenoy says that it will help the leaders who organise them to get tickets from respective political parties to contest elections. He calculates the loss of productivity of travellers to be at least Rs 40 lakh from this rasta roko.

According to him, Channapatna rasta roko has become a routine affair to fight for any cause. At the drop of a hat, activists of various kinds are organising rasta roko without any fear of the police or justice system. Can we afford them?

“When MGP was planning to organise a peaceful protest on Lalitha Mahal road to protest against the felling of trees, police threatened us and prevented us from holding such a protest. Our protest would not have created problem to any one. Still police took action,” said Shenoy.

“Why didn’t the police take precaution measures by not allowing the crowd to gather? By that they could have avoided am unmanageable situation later? Their intelligence would have informed of the rasta roko. Why did the police fail to take action? Will the state government take action against those who failed to take timely action?,” he said in the release.

Will some NGOs file a PIL in high court requesting it direct the state government to take every precaution to stop such protests in the future?

There is no other place in the state where such rasta rokos are held like in Channapatna on a regular basis. It is high time we take action, he said in the release.