Congress suddenly calls off March 9 bandh, cites PUC II exams

BENGALURU: The state Congress, which had called for a two-hour bandh on March 9 between 9 am and 11 am, suddenly withdrew the call citing the PUC II examinations starting on Thursday, saying that it may inconvenience students. However, it is said that there were differences among the party leaders over the bandh call and also scepticism over support for it.

KPCC president D K Shivakumar was confident of going ahead with the two-hour bandh even on Wednesday morning.

On March 5, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president D K Shivakumar had called for a two-hour statewide bandh to protest against the alleged corruption in the BP government. After coming to know about the PUC II exams, Congress leaders had insisted that they will go ahead with the bandh but will not inconvenience school and college students and would not stop movement of buses or public transport. Even on Wednesday, they were planning to go ahead with the bandh, but suddenly dropped the plan.

On Wednesday morning, Shivakumar said, “School and college students and the general public will not be affected. Let people support us voluntarily. We have informed our local units to mark their protest in some form without causing inconvenience to others”.

It is said that party leaders Siddaramaiah and Dr G Parameshwara conveyed to AICC general secretary in charge of Karnataka, Randeep Singh Surjewala, that organising a bandh on the day the exams were starting could dent the party’s image. On Surjewala’s suggestion, Shivakumar spoke to Ramalinga Reddy and asked him to announce withdrawal of the bandh call.

On Wednesday afternoon, Ramalinga Reddy announced that the bandh call had been withdrawn.

“Some heads of educational institutions spoke to Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar and requested that the bandh be called off as it may affect students. We decided that it should not cause any sort of inconvenience to school and college students. Hence, we are calling off the bandh”, Ramalinga Reddy announced on Wednesday afternoon.