All roads lead to hell

All roads lead to hell
4 Parties Take Out Rallies | People Stranded | Roads Paralyzed
TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bangalore: Four protests back to back. And on roads connecting the city’s nerve centre. All hell broke loose on Thursday morning when commuters were stranded in Majestic with no escape routes. For almost two hours, vehicles were lined up for quite a distance on Palace Road, Seshadri Road, KG Road, Mysore Bank Circle, and the City railway station area. Apart from honking relentlessly and cursing the police, the stranded commuters had no choice but to bear the scorching sun.
The backlash was such that adjoining areas also bore the brunt — vehicles travelling towards Majestic and heading to Malleswaram and Seshadripuram also were stuck.
A rally taken out by CITU from City railway station to Freedom Park on Seshadri Road at noon held traffic to ransom. About 8,000-strong CITU members had taken out a rally demanding facilities for unorganzied sector workers. Seshadri Road was jampacked with protestors and later Kalidasa Road was also blocked as the CITU members held a meeting.
Milind Dharmasen, JD(S) state general secretary, who was stuck in the traffic jam for one and half hours near Race Course Road flyover, said the police could have divided the road space for both the protestors and vehicles to move alongside. Adithya, a private company employee, who was on a bus near Majestic, blamed the authorities for letting protesters disrupt traffic.
Worse was yet to come. Youth Congress members along with senior Congress leaders D K Shiva Kumar and Krishna Byregowda tried to barge into a terror-awareness campaign held by students’ representatives on Central College campus. After sometime, JD(S) party members burned effigies of the chief minister at Mysore Bank Circle.
Just as when the mess was being cleared, about 2,000 BSP activists marched from Hudson Circle to Bannappa Park on KG Road. The protestors took to the roads at 3 pm for about half an hour, disrupting traffic yet again. Though coffee growers from different parts of the state protested in front of the coffee board demanding a relief package for coffee growers, this fortunately did not impact traffic much.
JAM SESSION
CITU: Unorganized sector labourers’ rally from City railway station to Freedom Park on Seshadri Road. Youth Congress: Central College premises, opposing terror-awareness campaign to be held in colleges. JD(S): Opposed terror-awareness programme at Mysore Bank Circle. BSP: At Bannappa Park about a scam.