The ban on people visiting the Marina and staying there in groups that was quietly enforced after the situation turned critical in New Delhi was relaxed on Friday with the police continuing to keep a close eye on potential protestors visiting the beach
Chennai: The stifling of protests by students and left wing youth activists in Tamil Nadu in the past few days has angered the CPM, an ally of the ruling TVK, that its State president P Shanmugham came out with a statement that the party would have to review the alliance if the police continued to put down protestors taking up various causes in future.
While most of the major parties other than the BJP have expressed solidarity with the protestors who had hit the streets of Delhi under the aegis of the youth-led Cockroach Janata Party, the police in Tamil Nadu ensured that the show of anger did not spill into public space outside college campuses and offices of the CPI and CPM in Chennai.
Though the anger among the youth and students was palpable as agitations were held by social activists groups with many film personalities expressing their solidarity, the protests did not capture the imagination of the common people in the State as it did in 2017 when the pro-Jallikattu strike at the Marina sands.
The ban on people visiting the Marina and staying there in groups that was quietly enforced after the situation turned critical in New Delhi was relaxed on Friday with the police continuing to keep a close eye on potential protestors visiting the beach.
A protest was held outside the Rajarathinam Stadium gates, which has been earmarked for agitations, by several activists groups where some film personalities like Manzoor Ali Khan, James Vasanthan, Ranjit, Vetrimaran, Amir and May 17 movement founder Thirumurugan Gandhi delivered speeches, but police ensured that there was no traffic disruption and that the incident did not draw public attention.
The indoor protests that have been going on at the State headquarters of the CPI and CPI since the demand for the resignation of Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan for the leak of question paper from the NEET examination was raised by students in New Delhi continued but were highly contained to the premises.
The ferment at various colleges, too, was not allowed to spill over into the public space in Tamil Nadu, the State that stood up first to demand the abolition of NEET. However, the students continued to organize their protests in their own way in solidarity with the Cockroach Janata Party.
