MUMBAI: Cracks surfaced on Wednesday among the Maratha quota agitators over the proposed shutdown in Maharashtra on August 9.
Responding to apprehensions of police that violence may take place during the shutdown, the agitators, at a meeting of the central body in Aurangabad, decided to exclude Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane and Beed. However, a group of agitators in Mumbai said they would go ahead with the bandh in the city on Thursday.
The Maratha agitation started on August 9 from Ahmednagar in 2016. The statewide bandh is being observed to commemorate the completion of two years of the agitation and to condemn the state government's 'slack attitude' towards resolving the demands raised by the Marathas.
Maratha agitation leader Vinod Patil said at Aurangabad that the bandh would be peaceful. "We have ensured that there is no trouble to any section of society during the agitation," he said. Those who will lead the protests in Thane said there would be a protest march where all the agitators would sport black ribbons.
In Mumbai, Kishor Suryavanshi, the Maratha leader who recently led the 'jail bharo' agitation where only a few dozen people had turned up, said that "Mumbai would be shut down at any cost".
District collectors in Pune, Aurangabad and a few other districts have declared a holiday for educational institutions on Thursday as a preventive measure ahead of the bandh.
The protestors gathered at Aurangabad also said that if the government doesn't withdraw cases against agitators, they would resort to "Chulha bandh" agitation from August 16 onwards.
Meanwhile, the agitation continued at several places across the state wherein people shove their heads, took out marches wherein donkeys were dressed in masks of ministers of the BJP government in the state and sat down in protest demonstrations outside residences of MPs and MLAs.