SP, admn gearing up for today?s bandh

IN VIEW of the tomorrow’s bandh call given by the Samajwadi Party (SP) to protest against the hike in prices of petroleum products, the district administration has made elaborate security arrangements to ward off any untoward incident.

Various political parties including the Left have supporsed the bandh.

While the SP is busy making preparations for making the bandh a success, the administration is gearing up to deal with any untoward incident during the bandh.

Since the BJP has already protested against the price hike by blocking some roads and railway tracks on June 7, it will not participate in the bandh.

The Congress whose government at the Centre hiked the prices will obviously not support the bandh.

Thus, the strike will be purely an SP affair.

“We will ensure that the bandh is successful and in this connection a big rally is being taken out in the evening to mobilise support for tomorrow’s bandh,” Rakesh Jain, SP city president said.

Senior Superintendent of Police Ashutosh Pandey said, “We will deploy additional forces at certain places like bus stands, railway and other prominent crossings to ensure incident-free bandh on Tuesday.”

A series of meetings were organised by the political parties in Gorakhpur in connection with the bandh.

Samajwadi Party’s state working committee member Gopal Yadav said that the party leaders were contacting different trade organisations and appealed to them to close their establishments tomorrow.

Sources said the party leaders would put up road blockade at different crossings.

The parties supporting the bandh are the Samajwadi Janata Party, the National Loktantrik Party.