Ahead of BJP's 38th Foundation Day celebrations in Mumbai's BKC today, commuters brace for massive traffic snarls

Regular commuters in Mumbai are bracing themselves for a bad-traffic day ahead on Friday ahead of BJP’s foundation day celebrations planned at the MMRDA grounds in Bandra Kurla Complex. BJP chief Amit Shah is expected to address around 3 lakh party workers at the event who are expected to come in from across the state. The rally is planned ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election as a show of strength for the party, and the BJP has booked 28 trains from across the state, as also 50,000 private buses and vehicles for transportation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will interact with BJP workers of five Lok Sabha seats and with the presidents of the party’s 734 district units, a BJP statement said. The five Lok Sabha constituencies chosen are New Delhi, North East Delhi, Hamirpur in in Himachal Pradesh, North Central Mumbai and Saran in Bihar. Their MPs are Meenakshi Lekhi, Manoj Tiwari, Anurag Thakur, Poonam Mahajan and Rajiv Pratap Rudy respectively. The statement said Modi will speak to thousands of party workers in these five seats besides the district presidents and their team members on a host of issues, and will also answer their queries.

Over 300,000 workers — booth level to Members of Parliament — from Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are expected for the mega event, said Danve-Patil. To a question whether this signals the launch of BJP’s campaign for the next parliament elections, he said: “Yes.. You can say that.”

BJP cadres organised a bike rally, when Shah arrived in Mumbai on Thursday, and a congregation at the airport to welcome party leaders severely hit vehicular traffic on the Western Express Highway’s south-bound arm for over five hours, The Times of India reported. Traffic snarls due to the rally stretched for 20 kilometres upto Borivali. Reports said additional traffic policemen were posted on the stretch but there was hardly any relief for the commuters.

Amitabh Bachchan tweeted about the traffic snarls on Thursday:

T 2765 - A 30 min drive .. takes 5 hours .. ! thats the Phantom movie camera moving at 500 frames per second .. Film City to JVPD Scheme, Juhu .. normal camera moves at 24 frames ..

— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) April 5, 2018

For Friday’s event, the Mumbai Police issued a traffic advisory which said, “Traffic congestion is likely to occur on approach roads to Western Express Highway and Eastern Express Highway towards BKC. Commuters are advised to avoid Santa Cruz Chembur Link Road (SCLR), Surve Junction on LBS Road, Sion Junction, Dharavi T Junction, Hansbhugra Marg, CST Road, Nehru Road till Ambedkar Junction and Sharadadevi Road as far as possible.”

Around 80,000 booth heads, 26 wings and unit office-bearers, 5,000 village sarpanches, elected members of 97 big and small civic bodies, all MPs and MLAs, district and sub-district heads — who have been entrusted to bring another five-ten representatives each — have already started arriving in the city.

More than 50,000 buses and vehicles and 28 special trains will ferry the activists from across Maharashtra and other states, at the BKC Grounds, all being supervised by Mumbai party President Ashish Shelar. Elaborate arrangements have been made at the BKC Grounds with three massive stages, seven marquees for the events and another two marquees for the activists to stay the night.

Provision has been made for their comfortable stay with food packets and water supply during the entire duration of their halt in Mumbai. Besides, similar celebrations shall be held in all districts and other states of India, and various people-oriented welfare programmes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi shall be showcased through digital and social media.

With inputs from agencies

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