The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will go ahead with its bandh call in Coimbatore on October 31 as announced earlier, said Vanathi Srinivasan, the BJP’s national women’s wing president, and Coimbatore south MLA, on Friday.
Ms. Srinivasan said, in a statement, that the bandh was announced to press the party’s demand that terrorism should be put down with an iron hand.
This follows the blast in Coimbatore on October 23. Bandh is a democratic way of protest, she said.
Ms. Srinivasan said Tamil Nadu Electricity Minister V. Senthilbalaji was not in Coimbatore for four days though the car blast happened on October 23. He came to Coimbatore only after the BJP announced its bandh. He levelled allegations against BJP’s State president K. Annamalai and claimed that there is normalcy in Coimbatore, she said.
However, the Minister also said in his press meet that 3,000 police men are deployed in Coimbatore and 40 check posts have been created to monitor the situation. So many policemen were deployed and check posts put up only because the situation is bad in Coimbatore and that is why the BJP had called for a bandh, she said.
The BJP leader alleged that the Minister had threatened members of trade and industry to not participate in the bandh. According to her, the Minister came to Coimbatore only to ensure that the bandh does not take place. The BJP will not be intimidated by such threats, she said.
Published - October 28, 2022 01:30 pm IST
