On Saturday, August 24, a bandh was called by the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance, which is composed of the Congress, NCP (SP), and Shiv Sena (UBT).
In light of a ruling by the Bombay high court, Nationalist Congress Party (SP) chief Sharad Pawar filed an appeal on Friday to have Saturday’s Maharashtra bandh called off.
NCP(SP) is a member of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance, which first demanded a statewide bandh to protest the sexual assault of two four-year-old girls in a Badlapur school and to put pressure on the government to act quickly.
But on Friday, the Bombay High Court stepped in and banned anyone and any political party from endorsing or taking part in the bandh. A division bench consisting of Justice Amit Borkar and Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya declared that the Maharashtra government would take all necessary measures to avoid a bandh.
Following the Badlapur incident, tomorrow was designated as the state’s public shutdown.This was an attempt to bring this issue to the government’s notice,” Pawar wrote in Marathi on X.
“But the bandh is unconstitutional, according to the Bombay High Court’s ruling. Owing to time constraints, an appeal against the High Court’s order (on bandh) cannot be filed in the Supreme Court. The bandh call should be rescinded in accordance with the ruling made by the Indian judiciary, which is a body established by the constitution, he continued.
The state unit chief of the Congress, Nana Patole, announced that party members will stage protests throughout Maharashtra on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m., withdrawing the party’s call for a bandh.
Honoring the ruling of the Bombay High Court, all Congress leaders will demonstrate against sexual harassment of women and the Maharashtra government’s inaction by wearing black bands across their mouths and faces from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. “I’ll participate in the demonstration in Thane district,” stated Patole.
Chief of the Shiv Sena (UBT), Uddhav Thackeray, stated that “we respect the court” despite disagreeing with the verdict.
Eknath Shinde, the chief minister of Maharashtra, called the Bombay High Court’s ruling a “slap” for the opposition and announced that the government would enforce it.
During the launch of the ‘Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin’ scheme in Nashik, Shinde declared that the Badlapur incident was a “blot on humanity.”
It also affected the joy we felt after depositing ₹1500 into the Laadki Bahin scheme beneficiary women’s accounts. However, the Opposition has been defaming this plan and politicizing the incident,” he stated. Shinde declared that the high court’s ruling was “a slap across the Opposition’s face” and that his government would carry it out.
