JOIN USThe ‘Bharat bandh’ against petrol price hike failed to bring non-Congress parties on board in Tamil Nadu as politics got the better of the cause.
While sporadic incidents of stone-throwing of buses and trains led to arrests of hundreds of workers of BJP, Left parties and trade unions in some parts of the state on Thursday, the country-wide bandh call had little impact on the state as a whole.
The poor response to the bandh showed that little ground has been covered in trying to get the non-Congress opposition parties on a single platform.
When contacted, sources from different political parties told Deccan Herald that the call for bandh was more identified with the BJP, the CPI and CPI(M) besides other NDA parties which excluded other non-Congress, particularly regional, parties in states where neither the BJP nor Left parties are strong.
In Tamil Nadu, the BJP and the Left have got isolated in recent months. Despite the ruling AIADMK’s sympathy towards the BJP at the National level, J Jayalalitha is playing her political cards too subtly to open up a possible ‘Third Front’.
Further, the CPI(M), the leading Left party in the State, had already snapped political ties with the AIADMK to support actor Vijayakant-led DMDK.
The DMK’s uneasiness with the Congress was becoming visible in recent days. M Karunanidhi himself called for state-wide protests but the stir was a DMK affair. To sharpen his party’s stance, he himself led the protest rally in Chennai.
However, the AIADMK supremo J Jayalaltiha responded to price hike a day earlier than the DMK. Her party took up the issue and staged protests against the Centre, demanding a total roll-back of the hike, a la her Trinamool counterpart, Mamata Bannerjee in Bengal.
Sources noted that the smaller parties like the PMK and DMDK also pitched in to assert their individuality, calling for separate protests on June 1 and June 2 respectively. “Thus, even a vital issue like petrol price hike became an opportunity for individual show of strength,” they added. The state witnessed sporadic protests on a single issue, spread over a week, indicating the regional parties’ inability to come together.
On Thursday, noted BJP leader Ela Ganesan and its state unit president, Pon Radhakrishnan were arrested in Chennai when they blocked the traffic at Anna Salai.
Hundreds of workers of the BJP and Left parties were held for attempting to damage trains at Thanjavur and Coimbatore and for blocking road traffic.
In Kanniyakumari district, where the BJP and the Left parties have a sizeable presence, 15 buses were damaged in stone-pelting.
Auto-rickshaws and cabs remained off the roads. A section of the traders’ call to join the ‘Bandh’ evoked a mixed response from shopkeepers.