Tough, tiring day for commuters

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s dharna on the second and final day caused inconvenience to the commuters.

Not until he called off his dharna, four Metro stations continued to be shut and roads remained choked with traffic in central Delhi.

 “Stuck at tilak road, New Delhi in traffic caused byAAP’s dharna, ye Sarkar problem solve kar rahi hai? Ya badha rahi hai!” wrote a commuter on Twitter.
Traffic jams were furiously debated on social media.

“How much of the traffic jam in Delhi is because of AAP’s dharna, and how much of it is because, well, it’s Delhi?” tweeted city resident Sachin Kalbag using the hash tag ‘devilsadvocate’.

The problems due to traffic jams and Metro station shutdowns are palpable, said Isha Sharma, who works at a bank in Jhandewalan near central Delhi. She lives in Lajpat Nagar and takes the violet line to office daily.

When she left for office on Tuesday, she didn’t know that the interchange facility at Central Secretariat wouldn’t be available. “The train to Central Secretariat terminated at Khan Market. There was so much rush there and I realised that I was not alone,” said Sharma.

“Autorickshaw drivers asked for exorbitant fare, saying they can’t take the normal route,” she added. So Sharma took a cab with two other commuters who were also going to their offices near Jhandewalan.

“I was afraid because I had to share the cab with a woman and one strange man,” she said.

The buzz on Twitter was still on till late evening. Another Twitter user Asmita Bakshi wrote, “The AAP dharna caused a traffic jam in central Delhi? I shudder at the thought of what’ll happen to traffic if they come to power in Bombay.”

Only after Sharma returned home from office at 8 pm the four Metro stations were opened. But at the end of the day, she was delighted to hear that Kejriwal has called of his dharna.