A 12-hour Bharat bandh call given by 13 opposition parties including the Left to protest price rise had a partial impact in some states of India. While private airlines cancelled flights to and fro Kolkata, train services also came to a halt in West Bengal, Orissa and parts of Bihar and Jharkhand.
Life came to a standstill in the Kolkata metropolis, but there was no disruption to normal life in Mumbai and Delhi, where the BJP and Shiv Sena stayed away from the bandh call.
In Lucknow, Samajwadi party activists set fire to two buses, squatted on rail tracks near Ghaziabad to stop the Lucknow Shatabdi Express and at select stations of Uttar Pradesh, but the activists were removed by the police.
Life came to a standstill in Orissa, where the ruling Biju Janata Dal participated in the bandh call. All vehicles went off the road in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack and bus and train services were crippled.
The parties which have taken the leading role to make this bandh a success are Communist Party of India (CPI), Biju Janata Dal, Communist Party of India (M), Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), Samajwadi Party (SP), Rashtriya Samajwadi Party (RSP).
The bandh also disrupted life in Left-ruled Kerala and Tripura.
Among the worst affected by the nationwide bandh was Kolkata airport, where only Air India was operating skeleton services.
In Allahabad, Samajwadi Party workers stopped the Ganga Gomti Express but they were later removed by police.
In Thiruvananthapuram, streets were deserted and vehicles kept off the streets. Shops, business establishment, schools and other educational institutions werere also completely closed.
While there are reports of trains being disrupted at some places, no air traffic disruption has been reported so far.
In Bengal, air and rail services were hit and normal life disrupted in Kolkata and elsewhere. The bandh shut businesses and disrupted transport services by road, rail and flight operations. Metro railways spokesperson said their services were normal.
Airport sources said 10 out of 25 domestic and international flights took off in the morning. While fights of Air-India, Jet Airways and Jetlite took off as scheduled in the morning, services of other private airlines were badly hit with many passengers stranded at the airport.
Eastern Railway spokesperson said, due obstructions put up by bandh supporters at several stations, train services were disrupted at Howrah and Sealdah division. Long-distance trains were stranded at various stations as bandh supporters sat on the railway tracks.
Two train passengers were injured as a clash broke out between the passengers of Ganga Sagar Express and bandh supporters at Pandua station in Hoogly district on Tuesday morning.
The streets in Kolkata wore a deserted look with state-run buses, private vehicles, taxis, auto-rickshaws remaining off the road since 6 am as the bandh began. Shops and educational institutions were closed, officials said. Left Front Chairman Biman Bose said the bandh has been a spontaneous protest against price rise.
The Bharat bandh called by the ruling Left Front in West Bengal will cost the state close to Rs 500 crore what with an estimated production loss of 61-62 per cent.
"According to a rough estimate by the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the total loss due to a 12-hour bandh in West Bengal would be approximately Rs 496 crore of the Gross State Domestic Product," ICC Senior Vice-President P Jayanta Roy said.
"Annually the percentage loss per bandh to gross and net SDP stands at 0.21 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively. Quantification of non-economic loss is, however, not feasible," Roy said.
"This mainly includes loss of investors' interests, damage to state's impression to prospective investors, damage to industrial climate, socio-political unrest etc," he added.
Rail services were disrupted in some parts of Uttar Pradesh for some time and three buses were torched in state capital Lucknow allegedly by Samajwadi Party workers during a nation-wide bandh called by the Left and non-BJP parties.
Scores of SP activists were detained in Allahabad while trying to disrupt rail traffic. More than 50 SP workers gathered at the Prayag railway station at around 5 am in the morning and squatted on the tracks, obstructing the movement of Lucknow-bound GangaGomati Express, police said. The train later took off half an hour after schedule.
While the SP workers torched two buses in Krishna Nagar and Ashiyana areas in the wee hours, another was set ablaze in front of Vidhan Bhawan building, they said.
The SP workers also stopped trains at several places in the state including Lucknow and Pratapgarh, the sources said, adding that some people were detained in this connection.
In Ghaziabad, Samajwadi Party workers stopped the Lucknow-bound Shatabdi at the railway station for around 20 minutes. Some trains on way to Delhi were also blocked but these obstructions were later removed, railway sources said.
Daily commuters between Meerut and Delhi were stranded as private buses were not plying on the stretch. In Modinagar, Lok Dal leader and Chairman Modinagar Nagar Palika Sudesh Sharma along with his supporters blocked traffic.
In Kerala, the dawn-to-dusk bandh called by the Left and their allies disrupted rail and road traffic. Bandh supporters stopped trains at different stations. Both private and state-run bus services, taxis, auto-rickshaws and commercial vehicles kept off the roads, police said.
Vehicular movement was paralysed across Orissa as bandh supporters blocked national highways, state highways and other roads, putting a halt to plying of passenger buses, trucks, taxis and auto-rickshaws, police sources said. Rail services were also affected as trains were stopped at different stations for a brief period, they said.
Security was tightened throughout the state with deployment of about 2000 security personnel in various places to deal with any eventuality during the strike called by seven non-Congress and non-BJP political parties in the state.
In Bhubaneswar, shops, business establishments and commercial outfits remained closed during the bandh. The strike affected work in central government offices, public sector units, including NALCO, post offices and banks as bandh supporters resorted to picketing and prevented staff from entering their offices, sources said.
The shutdown also affected normal life in various places like Cuttack, Berhampur, Rourkela, Sambalpur, Balasore, Puri, Balangir, Baripada and Khurda. PTI
