Silent anti-CEC protest by UBT, MNS & CJP at Shivaji Park turns vocal

Mumbai: Hours after the police booked Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA

Aaditya Thackeray, MNS’

Amit Thackeray and others on Monday for their protest the previous day, Aaditya said he would continue the anti-CEC agitation “for justice,” asserting that no number of FIRs would deter him. He was speaking at Shivaji Park in Dadar, where his party and MNS had called their supporters and Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) supporters to gather to demand the resignation of chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Monday’s gathering was peaceful.

The Shivaji Park police have registered an FIR against 250 persons, including Aaditya Thackeray, Amit Thackeray, Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Mahesh Sawant, 25 members of CJP and unknown protesters, for unlawful assembly on Sunday.

The Congress on Monday had organised a separate protest on the same issue around the same time a few km away, at its state headquarters, Tilak Bhavan, in Dadar.

At Shivaji Park, around a thousand supporters of Sena (UBT), MNS and CJP began gathering around 4 pm on Monday. Among those who came in were UBT Sena MLAs, corporators and MNS functionaries.

The CJP supporters, initially scattered in small groups across the ground, gradually came together, carving out a space to sit and stage their protest around the same demand.

Meanwhile, the Thackeray cousins remained surrounded by their respective party supporters. The two distinct streams of protesters, visibly separate in their affiliations and approach at the same venue, were united by the common demand for the CEC’s resignation.

What was conceived by the Thackeray cousins as a ‘silent protest’ gradually turned into a vocal demonstration, with slogans demanding the CEC’s resignation and protesters raising the call for “azadi” before the gathering concluded with the national anthem. Deployment of police personnel and barricading in the area was reduced compared to what was seen at the earlier CJP protest at the same venue.

The UBT Sena functionaries stated they will continue their fight till the resignation of the CEC and warned of more protests.

On Sunday, over 100 CJP supporters were detained by the police before they reached Shivaji Park for the protest, which prompted Aaditya Thackeray and Amit Thackeray to intervene with an impromptu sit-in along with scores of supporters near Sena Bhavan. Subsequently, the police released the detained protesters but registered an FIR against the Thackeray cousins and others on Monday.