Sainiks agitate against MNC-made soft drinks

AS PART of their state-wide anti-cola campaign, activists of Shiv Sena staged a dharna at the district headquarters here in Varanasi on Saturday.

AS PART of their state-wide anti-cola campaign, activists of Shiv Sena staged a dharna at the district headquarters here in Varanasi on Saturday.

HT Image

Raising slogans against Union and State Governme-nts, Shiv Sainiks torched banners of multi-national soft-drink manufacturing companies. They said several developed countries such as France and Netherlands had termed these soft drinks as ‘slow-poison’ and banned them.

“Why is the government allowing them to enter our country,” said the demonstrators.

Citing the fresh report of Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) which claimed that 11 brands of Coca Cola and Pepsi contained pesticides 24 times above the standard finalised by the Bureau of Indian Standard (BIS), the demonstrators demanded from the Union and State Government to impose an immediate ban over soft drinks.

Divisional president of the outfit Ajay Chaubey alleged that pesticides reported in these soft-drinks harmed the organs and other parts of body, therefore, government should take serious note of this fresh report and ban Pepsi and Coca-Cola across the country.

District chief of the Sena Gulshan Kapoor said instead of accepting the presence of pesticides in their products, the soft drink companies are raising questions over purity of water, sugar, vegetables and fruits of India. Demonstrators forwarded a 6-point charter of demands to President, Union Government, State Government, Governor, DM and the SSP here.