Traffic comes to a standstill as Ajit Pawar holds meet

Commuters travelling between Khadki railway station and University Road faced a harrowing time during the peak morning hours on Saturday.

Reason: Deputy chief minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar was holding a meeting with his associates in a bungalow blocking the Range Hills Road and a huge number of party workers had descended on Bhosalenagar area.

As one lane of the Range Hills Road meant for vehicles heading towards Khadki has been dug up for concretisation, the original stretch’s width has been reduced to half and the NCP workers and their vehicles ate up a good part of the remaining road, causing a major roadblock.

The political gathering snarled up the traffic for long hours and vehicles queued up on the entire 1 km stretch of the road between University Road and Range Hills corner. The worst hit were office-goers and students. Several vehicles were forced to use alternate routes via Indo-Bremen Maitri Chowk and Old Mumbai-Pune highway.

Heavy vehicles using the road worsened the situation as the stretch provides an easy access to Khadki railway station, besides connecting University Road to Mumbai-Pune road and Aundh road.

The NCP workers started gathering in Bhosalenagar area since early morning. Most of them on four-wheelers parked their vehicles on the Range Hills Road. The chock-a-block during the peak hours forced the traffic police to arrive at the spot and regulate traffic. However, the bottleneck prevailed till afternoon.

Sangvi resident Shantanu Ghule, who found himself stranded for a good half an hour said, “This is senseless. The politicians should take care that commoners are not harassed at least during the election time.”

Another frustrated commuter Ganesh Shinde said, “Travelling on this stretch is already difficult because of the ongoing road work. The political party workers should have given a thought to this and parked their vehicles elsewhere, instead of blocking the road.”

Bhosalenagar resident IC Bhandari said, “The road was blocked since morning and there was nobody to regulate the traffic. That worsened the situation.”