Nagpur: With election season approaching, politics is getting fast and furious. Two days after the Congress resorted to ‘protest fast’ across the country, it was the BJP’s turn to observe ‘daylong fast’ against the Opposition parties disrupting Parliament work.. In the city, the protest fast was led by Rajya Sabha member Dr Vikas Mahatme.
The Congress was protesting against the BJP’s divisive politics, growing atrocities on dalits, economic and other failures of Narendra Modi government. As with the Congress, the BJP ‘fast’ also had nothing to do with public participation. Party leaders and workers lazily walked in and out and somehow pulled off the day. To his credit, Dr Mahatme reached the protest venue — Samvidhan Chowk — on time at 10am. But MLAs and functionaries took their own time and a modest crowd gathered only by 12 noon.
The symbolic fast began after Dr Mahatme and leaders garlanded the statue of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar at the RBI Square. Then the speech-fest began with leader after leader trying to put the Congress in the dock for not allowing Parliament to function.
“We needed to tell the people that the Congress, by not allowing the Parliament function for 23 days on the trot, was doing injustice to the countrymen,” said Dr Mahatme. “The Congress-led Opposition was worried that if matters were debated in Parliament, its past sins like allowing Nirav Modi huge loans, piling up of problems during 60 years of Congress rule, would be exposed,” said Chandrashekhar Bawankule. The show ended at 5 pm.
