In the fifth anti-reservation protest in the city this month, thousands of students, doctors and senior citizens gathered at Shivaji Park.
In the fifth anti-reservation protest in the city this month, thousands of students, doctors, young professionals and senior citizens gathered at Shivaji Park at sunset on Saturday and lit candles in the hope that the government listens to them and does not increase the percentage of seats reserved for backward castes in higher educational institutions.
Akhil Goel, spokesperson, Youth for Equality, said police denied permission to protestors for a march on the streets, but allowed them to stage their protest in a barricaded area inside Shivaji Park.
Shouting slogans against human resource development minister Arjun Singh, the students lit candles as the sun went down. They also took an oath stating, “I swear my vote and the votes of all my relatives will go to the government that supports equality and social justice.”
The crowd screamed ‘Reservation no more’ and held banners criticising Singh and the reservation policy.
Senior citizens who regularly take walks in Shivaji Park joined the youth movement by contributing to the signature campaign. Jawahar Joshi, 59, a resident of Shivaji Park area, said, “This is the second independence movement. We are not satisfied with the government’s conduct. The police shouldn’t have caned youngsters last week.
The students should now gather more public support and make the agitation more visible. We have given our contact information to the students and will help them by writing letters to newspapers.” Joshi was accompanied by a group of 20 senior citizens.
A hundred and fifty students from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay also took part in the protest. Ram Kakkad, a student from IIT-B said, “The government’s announcement to increase seats is not practical.
Currently, in some departments of IIT, if every student attends class, there won’t be any place to sit. It takes years to gather top class faculty and get infrastructure.”
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