The Delhi units of Central trade unions on Tuesday claimed that workers in the Capital responded in large numbers to their call to abstain from work. The unions said workers held rallies, boycotted work, organised chakka jams and even halted a few trains.
A large rally was taken out at Parliament Street followed by a public meeting which was addressed by several trade union leaders including Gurudas Dasgupta of the All-India Trade Union Congress, B. N. Rai of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), and J. P. Sharma of the Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS).
Traffic was halted at ITO after workers affiliated to the Delhi unit of the AITUC held a demonstration there shouting slogans against the government's inability to curtail price rise and violations of labour laws.
Workers from industrial areas in Okhla, Mayapuri, Naraina, Kirti Nagar, Mongolpuri, Bawana, Wazirpur and Patparganj took out processions.
Auto-rickshaws and taxis also took part in the strike. AITUC claimed that nearly 70,000 auto-rickshaws and 20,000 taxis stayed off the city roads in support of the strike, in addition to employees affiliated with DTC unions. Chakka jams were organised at Peeragarhi Chowk, Dabri Mod, Mayapuri-Naraina Chowk, Kalkaji Chowk Phase-II, and GT Karnal Road near Bawana.
BMS workers are claimed to have stopped a few trains near Narela and Shahdara. The unions claimed that despite the Essential Services Maintenance Act being imposed, workers of the many organisations went on strike.
In Gurgaon too, the unions claimed that their strike was successful and involved the participation of government and industrial workers.
Meanwhile, the Delhi Government in statement said: “As a result of the pro-active, prompt action and sufficient deployment of staff by the Delhi Government, complete normalcy was maintained in the city during the day in spite of the call to strike by various trade unions. There was no disruption in any service including power/water/traffic and with the cooperation of the citizens, the administration was able to ensure that citizens were not inconvenienced in any way and all services functioned normally.”
The Delhi Government said that normalcy prevailed throughout the day and that ESMA was clamped on power companies including generation and distribution companies “though there was no necessity to invoke it in real sense” in any part of the city.
