Following the viral sexual assault of two minor girls in Badlapur, Maharashtra, members of Maha Vikas Aghadi, which comprises NCP, Shiv Sena (UBT), and Congress demonstrated the protests across various areas on Saturday. Demos were characterized by the members having straps on their heads and arms, which conveyed their stand on the matter.
Earlier, the Shiv Sena (UBT)’s leader, Uddhav Thackrey, who was once the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, also protested outside the Shiv Sena Bhavan located at Dadar, strongly protesting against the Eknath Shinde headed Maharashtra government. Thackeray accused the ruling dispensation of supporting the accused and said that their reaction to the bandh, therefore, which, according to his and of others, was to ensure women’s safety, was out of fear. He was concerned with some people’s resistance to the bandh; he wondered why the government would not support a move aimed at safeguarding the female sex.
To its credit, Shiv Sena (UBT) Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi backed Thackeray’s remarks with the disconcerting statistics of intimidation and violence against women and girls in Maharashtra in the last ten days alone. Chaturvedi accused the present government of not doing justice to these problems and drew a parallel with the increasing crime rate in the UP.
Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Sanjay Raut underlined the constitutional backdrop of the bandh call, terming it as a protest against atrocities. Even though the bandh was considered unconstitutional by the court, Raut pinpointed that they aimed at highlighting the severe problems of women in Maharashtra.
Some of the Congress workers protested under the leadership of their party member Nana Patole; a similar stance was adopted by NCP-SP leader Jayant Patil and his workers, who also voiced their dissatisfaction with the ways the government acted on the Badlapur case. Patole and Patil protested the judgement the Bombay High Court had passed to restrain political parties from organising bandhs.
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