Gujarat responded to the ‘Bharat Bandh’ call given by the NDA and Left parties with a near total shutdown throughout the state on Monday.
Schools, colleges, banks, malls, theatres and shops that normally bustle with life were closed or deserted while auto-rickshaws and even private vehicles kept off the roads.
Scores of BJP workers thronged the streets to enforce the bandh in various cities of the state.
In Ahmedabad as elsewhere in the state, only medicine shops, dispensaries, dairies and vegetable vendors that were exempted from the strike, stayed open.
The ruling BJP has hailed the near total bandh in the state as a sign of the common man’s disaffection with the Union government’s policies.
But experts said the shutdown had cost the state Rs1,600 crore in losses. Of this, Ahmedabad alone suffered losses to the tune of Rs300 crore.
The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) said the bandh had brought Gujarat’s economy to a standstill.
An Assocham official said that Gujarat’s contribution to the country’s industrial output was 16%. “If we go by this figure, Gujarat must have incurred a loss of Rs1,600 crore because of the bandh,” the official said. “And Ahmedabad’s losses would be in the region of Rs300 crore.”
The bandh was largely peaceful in Ahmedabad barring a few incidents of stone-pelting in Kalupur, Rakhial, Akhbarnagar and Isanpur areas. Police detained 80 people but no case was registered against them.
Buses of the AMTS and BRTS could not run in the morning because of the pro-bandh activists who forced them to stay put in their depots.
With around 70% auto-rickshaws staying off the road in Ahmedabad, commuters were put too great inconvenience.
The delivery of goods in city was adversely impacted as over 40,000 trucks remained off roads, said Mukesh Dave, secretary, Akhil Gujarat Truck Transporters Association.
The state BJP had also included the issue of the alleged misuse of the CBI by the Centre as one of the reasons of the bandh.
