Left parties Bihar bandh evokes mix-response

Dozens of trains were stopped, national highways blocked at several places and hundreds of people were detained as the joint call for Bihar bandh given by six left parties evoked mixed response across the state today.
The band call was given by CPI, CPI (ML), CPI (M), SUCI(C), Forward Bloc and Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) against the alleged "anti-people" policies of the Central and state governments.
The Left parties also demanded recall of the 'controversial' land acquisition bill brought by NDA in the Parliament and resignations of Minister of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Chief Ministers - Shivraj Singh Chauhan (Madhya Pradesh), Raman Singh (Chhattisgarh) and Vasundhara Raje (Rajasthan).

Thousands of supporters of the six left parties took out a rally from Gandhi Maidan in the state capital raising anti-government slogans and blocked Dak Bungalow square, the nerve centre of traffic in the city. They also clashed with the police when it tried to stop them from enforcing the bandh.
Police officials said over two thousand protesters were detained across the state and later released.
Several senior leaders of left parties were among them, including CPI (ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya and state secretary Kunal, CPI state secretary Satyanarayan Singh, CPI(M) state secretary Awadhesh Kumar, SUCI(C) state committee member Arun Kumar Singh and RSP's Mahesh Singh.

"Four hundred supporters and workers of the Left parties were taken into preventive detention in the state capital itself," Additional Director General (ADG) (Law and Order) Alok Raj told PTI.
Left supporters also blocked the Ashok Rajpath for a while and Patna University was also disrupted for a while by student wings of the parties. However, no major effect of the bandh was seen in the state capital.