HOW SUCCESSFUL WAS BHARAT BANDH ?

The overall Bharat Bandh organised by the Congress party with the participation of majority of the non BJP opposition led by the Congress president Rahul Gandhi could be a matter of great satisfaction and rather success for them as all the saffron oppositing parties have at the all India level actively participated in the Bandh eliciting tremendous press coverage in the print and electronic media despite the best efforts of the ruling party calling it the opposition’s failed attempt.

While about 16 parties’ workers and leaders have participated in the Ram Lila Maidan conglomeration/ rally, the left parties and their leaders held their dharna cum protests at Jantar Mantar compounded with the protest marches by the Congress, Samajwadi Party and the BSP in Uttar Pradesh including demonstrations n sit in in almost all states of the country right from Kashmir to Kanya Kumari.

Even the partner of the BJP Shiv Sena has actively supported the Bandh in Maharashtra. The call for the national Bandh evoked mass protests including incidents of ransacking in Maharashtra and Bihar etc strongly condemned by the ruling BJP including a shocking and a sorry incident of the death of an infant girl in Bihar whose father could not get a timely conveyance to ferry her to hospital for the timely treatment.

The countrymen are badly furious, disenchanted and annoyed over the unabated arbitrary increase in the prices of petrol, diesal and the LPG and have expressed their antagonism by participating in this opposition sponsered Bandh all over the country.

The entire news channels of the country carried the Bandh related news and developments for the whole day on 10th with some of the news channels slamming the non BJP opposition for creating loot and putting the people of the country to massive inconvenience.

The Congress president Rahul Gandhi who actually dominated the show got the maximum political mileage annoying the left parties and its towering leaders like Sita Ram Yachuri etc thus compelling them to hold a sepatate protest against the rising fuel prices n the BJP government at Jantar Mantar.

But despite all this, what was ironical to note that while the BJP leaders like Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and the BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra were unsuccesfully endeavouring to protect their government on the fuel prices rise terming it as the international compulsion,  the prices of petrol and diesal further went up on the day of the national Bandh with petrol in Delhi costing Rs. 81 a litre and diesal at Rs. 73 a litre.

It is believed that the fuel prices that have gone up by 5% and 7% respectively in the rates of petrol n diesal since 1st of August are going to further enhance in the near future as the Rupee against the US dollar has again gone to the all time low on Monday at 72.18 against the dollar.

The current price of the brent oil is hovering around 77$ a barrel and India imports about 80% of the entire crude oil requirement obviously affecting the Indian foreign exchange reserves and increasing inflation manifold.

The greatest achievement of this Bharat Bandh was that it has once again given an opportunity to the leaders and workers of the non BJP opposition parties at the national and state levels’ to unite together publicly to send across a good message acrros the length and bredth of the country that though slowly but quite steadily, the entire anti saffron politicial conglomeration is taking a cohesive shape which may by 2019 become a credible and strong anti BJP political entity.

However, even if the ruling political dispensation of the country terms this Bharat Bandh as a failed attempt of the non BJP opposition, one thing that has been unambiguously transparent in this whole development was that the opposition parties of the country under Rahul Gandhi’s leadership have proved quite successful in standing alongwith the disenchanted anti BJP masses of the country, the common man annoyed by the unabated fuel prices rise and delivering the message far and wide that the governmentat the centre led by BJP has been incompetetive to control the inflation that is the direct result of the inflationery price rise of petro products, the highest in the last seven decades.

The levying of maximum taxes on petro products and not bringing them under the framework of the GST to reduce peoples’ woes have exposed the BJP of professing double standard politics and betraying the countrymen through rhetorics says a senior Congress leader.

What’s your take friends?