Train services were disrupted, highways blocked, and markets shut in several parts of the country on Wednesday as the Bharat Bandh, called by ten central trade unions, intensified.
In Odisha, members of the Khordha District unit of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) staged road blockades along the national highway near Bhubaneswar. In Kerala, Kottayam witnessed closed shops and deserted malls as support for the Bandh surged.
The strike, backed by a joint forum of national trade unions, found support from students, daily-wage workers, and transport sector employees. In Bihar’s Jehanabad, members of the Biju Janata Dal’s students’ wing brought rail traffic to a halt by squatting on tracks.
In West Bengal, protesters blocked tracks at Jadavpur railway station, halting suburban train services. The state-run North Bengal State Transport Corporation (NBSTC) instructed bus drivers to wear helmets for protection, citing fears of clashes. Services continued in Darjeeling Hills but were disrupted elsewhere.
“These people are saying the right thing (referring to the 'Bharat Bandh'), but we have to do our work. We are workers, so we support (the 'Bandh')... We are wearing it (helmet) for protection in case something happens,” a bus driver said in Kolkata.
Security personnel were deployed in large numbers, particularly in and around key transit points like the Jadavpur 8B bus stand, where buses operated cautiously.
However, Chennai and other parts of Tamil Nadu saw minimal disruption, with bus services running as usual. Isolated disruptions were reported in industrial zones and railway yards.
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The strike call stems from opposition to the Centre’s labour reforms, especially the four labour codes passed in 2020. Trade union leaders allege that these codes weaken protections for workers, limit collective bargaining rights, and facilitate contract labour and privatisation in public sector units.
“On the 17-point charter of the demand, the focus was on the demand to completely scrap the labour ports enacted by the government in 2020 to destroy the country's trade union movement. This will be a highly dangerous exercise, and ultimately, the government aims to dismantle the democratic structure,”
said CITU General Secretary Tapan Kumar Sen.
Participating organisations include Congress’s INTUC, AITUC, CITU, HMS, SEWA, TUCC, AIUTUC, AICCTU, LPF and UTUC.
In a joint statement, the unions criticised the government’s failure to convene the Indian Labour Conference for a decade. They accused it of curtailing worker rights under the guise of “ease of doing business”, reducing public spending on health, education and civic services, and fostering inflation and unemployment.
Their demands include filling of vacant posts in the government sector, enhanced MNREGA wages and days, and a complete rollback of the labour codes.
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