Mumbai: A day after a video of a woman angrily confronting BJP minister Girish Mahajan over traffic disruption during the women’s ‘Jan Aakrosh Morchat' march went viral on social media, the senior leader defended the demonstration, saying some inconvenience to the public is unavoidable during such agitations, though he acknowledged that the woman’s frustration was understandable.
In a video shared by IANS, while speaking to the media, Mahajan said the protest was held after women in Mumbai came out in large numbers to demonstrate against the Congress over the Women’s Reservation Bill not being passed in the Lok Sabha. He said the march was moving towards Worli and that when such large-scale protests are held, roads inevitably get blocked as participants move from one location to another.
Mahajan maintained that such situations are not unusual and pointed out that traffic congestion occurs during major protests and marches. According to him, commuters are bound to face inconvenience in such circumstances, and temporary road blockades become difficult to avoid when large crowds gather for a political demonstration.
The minister also said he did not disagree with the woman’s anger and accepted that she may have been getting late and was inconvenienced by the traffic snarl. However, he said there was a proper way to express displeasure and felt that the language used during the confrontation was inappropriate.
“When such a march takes place on the road and has to move from one place to another, in this case towards Worli, the road is bound to be blocked, and some inconvenience is inevitable in any protest. Still, there is a proper way to express anger, and I feel the language used was inappropriate”
He further said that if she had a grievance, she could have raised it with the police, adding that prior permission had already been taken for the protest. Mahajan said he had personally told the woman that the road would be cleared within 10 minutes and also apologised to her, assuring that such concerns would be kept in mind in the future. However, he maintained that the way she expressed her anger was incorrect.
The statement comes after a video surfaced online showing a visibly upset woman confronting Mahajan over the disruption caused by the protest. In the clip, she is seen questioning why such a demonstration was allowed to spill onto a busy road when an open ground nearby could have been used instead.
“Say what you want to say in an empty ground, get out of here, don’t stop the traffic. There are hundreds of people waiting, and there is an empty ground right there,” she is heard telling the minister.
The video has since triggered debate online, with many social media users divided over the woman’s tone and language, but also echoing her frustration over public inconvenience caused by political protests on already congested city roads.
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