Bandh evokes massive response

THE FIRST statewide Congress-sponsored bandh in the present BJP government today evoked massive response here. The bandh, that was called to press for a CBI probe into the Ujjain professor H S Sabharwal?s murder, had a popular support as schools and shops remained closed without coaxing.

THE FIRST statewide Congress-sponsored bandh in the present BJP government today evoked massive response here. The bandh, that was called to press for a CBI probe into the Ujjain professor H S Sabharwal’s murder, had a popular support as schools and shops remained closed without coaxing.

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Sensing the public mood, ABVP workers and policemen stayed away from group of Congress workers engaged in persuading shopkeepers to keep their business closed today.

All the major markets in both the old and the new City and BHEL and Bairagarh townships were closed. Petrol pumps and cinema halls were also closed. Schools and colleges were also remained ‘unofficially’ closed.

Medicine shops and other establishments catering to essential services had been exempted from the bandh. Large queues were seen on petrol pumps after the shops and other business establishments started opening late in the afternoon.

It was also the first occasion when the Congress workers seemed charged up in response to their leadership’s appeal to make the bandh a grand success.

State Congress chief Subhash Yadav set the stage for a spirited Congress attempt for success of the bandh. He arrived with a group of party workers on a motorbike at leader of Opposition Jamuna Devi’s official residence and the duo riding the same motorbike appealed people to close down their business establishments and cheered up the party workers.

College teachers expressed their anguish over the Ujjain incident by sporting black badges and a condolence meeting was also organised at MLB College to pay homage to Prof Sabharwal. They also handed over a memorandum addressed to the Chief Minister at his official residence.

College teachers also abstained from Teachers’ Day functions to express their anguish over assault on Prof Sabharwal. At Ravindra Bhavan, where official Teachers’ Day function was held in the presence of Governor Balram Jakhar, members of the MP Shikshak Congress protested against the Ujjain incident by wearing black badges.

ABVP workers visited different college campuses to seek blessings of the teachers. Teachers’ Day can never be observed as black day as it unites the young generation to Indian tradition where a teacher enjoys the status of God, they said.

Addressing a joint press conference in the evening, Subhash Yadav and Jamuna Devi said that people of Madhya Pradesh had manifested their anger over killing of Prof Sabharwal by voluntarily responding to bandh call of the party.

They said that the BJP Government’s attempts to shield the ABVP activists accused of assaulting the professor turned the Teachers’ Day into a day of ‘mourning’ and none but the Shivraj Singh Chouhan Government is responsible for it. They further claimed that the bandh was historically successful all over the State.