This is the second bandh that the state is bracing for in less than a week’s time and the fourth this year. Schools and government offices are likely to remain closed, according to Siddaramaiah.
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In Bengaluru – which exclusively depends on the Cauvery River for drinking water for its 10 million citizens – most of the IT industry, comprising software majors like Infosys and Wipro and about 400 multinationals, has declared a holiday. The most significant rise has been between Mysuru and Bengaluru. Bengaluru’s metro has suspended functioning for the day.
Public transport will be severely affected as as the state bus transport and cab services have announced their support to the protest.
At least 25,000 police and security personnel will patrol the streets of Bengaluru, Mysore and Mandya, among other parts of the state, to maintain law and order on Friday during a strike called by farmer and pro-Karnataka organizations over a Supreme Court directive to release Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu.
Schools in the state, which have lost many working days due to such protets, have declared a holiday on Friday across the state. Shops and establishments, markets, petrol bunks, hotels and malls, and banks are likely to remain shut.
The Congress government in the state has appealed for peace in the state. With political parties also supporting the day-long shutdown, security has been stepped up and additional forces have been deployed across the state to maintain law and order. The infamous city traffic is off the roads but there are protests at junctions across the city.
About 5,000 people, including Kannada film stars, producers and directors marched in a procession from Town Hall to Freedom Park in Bengaluru and addressed a huge gathering, urging the state government to stop releasing water to Tamil Nadu and instead supply for irrigation farms in the Mysuru region. Posters and placards carrying pictures of Siddaramaiah and Jayalalithaa were garlanded and slapped with footwear and carried on donkeys to express anger. Some women members of the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike have been detained by the Bengaluru Police for protesting at the airport.
Read | Cauvery water row explained: Why Tamil Nadu, Karnataka fight over river usage?
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He said the daily release of 15,000 cusecs of Cauvery water at the inter state border, Biligundulu, which, if continued, “would completely deprive the drinking water not only to the residents of Bangalore City but also to farmers of Cauvery basin and water for the only crop they grow”.
