Mumbai, Aug 23 The Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) called off its proposed Maharashtra shutdown (bandh) call and would hold silent sit-in protests with black flags and black bands on their faces, all over the state on Saturday, top party leaders said here on Friday.
The development came hours after the Bombay High Court Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar 'restrained' the MVA from implementing the state 'bandh' on Saturday to protest against the series of atrocities against women, including the recent Badlapur incident.
The court order came in a PIL filed by activist-lawyers Gunratan Sadavarte and Subhash Jha, who had challenged the MVA planned action tomorrow terming it as 'illegal', while the ruling MahaYuti leaders had slammed the MVA's proposed 'bandh'.
MVA allies – Congress state President Nana Patole, Nationalist Congress Party (SP) President Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena (UBT) President Uddhav Thackeray – late this evening announced their decision to call off the shutdown.
However, Thackeray said that though the order was not acceptable to them, they would respect the court verdict and refrain from carrying out the bandh on Saturday.
All the three parties have replaced the bandh with silent sit-in protests in all districts of Maharashtra where leaders and activists will sport black flags and black face bands.
"The torture meted to those two innocent girls was very disgusting. As a result, strong public sentiments emerged in this regard from all levels of society. This was an attempt to draw the government's attention to this matter. This bandh was within the purview of the Fundamental Rights of the Constitution of India," said Sharad Pawar.
However, though the Bombay HC has ruled that the bandh is unconstitutional, approaching the Supreme Court against it was not possible owing to the time constraints, Pawar said that the MVA would withdraw the bandh respecting the court and the Constitution.
"Respecting the decision of the Bombay HC, tomorrow from 11 a.m. - 12 p.m., all leaders and workers of the Congress party will protest against the anti-women grand alliance government by tying black bands on their faces and holding black flags in all the districts of the state. I myself will participate in this protest tomorrow at 11 a.m. in Thane," said Patole.
"I shall be sitting near Shiv Sena Bhavan from 11 a.m. tomorrow along with others. The court has ordered no shutdown, we shall even shut our mouths with black masks," said Thackeray.
Thackeray also expressed his displeasure at the activists who had challenged the MVA action, saying "that the cause has been ignored… and who will take responsibility for the atrocities on our mothers, sisters and daughters".
The SS-UBT chief questioned "whether the people of India have lost the right to carry out protests" when the country's Independence was won with such public agitations.
Earlier on Friday morning, the MVA had announced plans for the state-level 8-hour log shutdown while exempting all essential services to protest against the spate of incidents in which women, girls and even tiny tots were targeted in the past several days.
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