Congress ropes in third-gender protesters

Mumbai: Traffic came to a halt outside the state secretariat on Friday, as a large crowd of third-gender protesters took to the streets to add their voices to that of the Congress against the Union government. They had been invited by Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) president Nana Patole to join the continuing protests against the questioning of party leader Rahul Gandhi by the Enforcement Directorate.

Prior to their protest outside Mantralaya, members of the hijra community had participated in a meeting at Patole’s bungalow. They later also held a protest outside the office of the Bharatiya Janata Party at Nariman Point.

Although fewer than 100 in number, the third-gender mob was at the forefront, protesting even more vocally and belligerently than the men and women protesters associated with the Congress.

Hapless policemen muttered under their breath as a constituent of the MVA government, the political masters of Maharashtra, hit the streets for the fourth consecutive day over Gandhi’s ED questioning in New Delhi.

“We are damned if we act and damned if we do not act. How do we maintain law and order when the lawmakers in power themselves resort to disrupting public harmony like this? The downslide began from the time of the Sushant Singh Rajput case and, Maharashtra has not recovered ever since,” an exasperated police officer in civil clothes told First India.

His colleagues did not object to his observations.

With many of the protesters insisting on courting arrest, the Mumbai police could do little more than politely accommodate their insistence, only to let them go after the perfunctory drop-off at the Marine Lines police station.

However, some protesters felt that the Azad Maidan police station would have been better since they could have then simply taken the suburban train next door and returned home after a fruitful day of professional protests.