The efforts of the protesters to attract a massive crowd on Republic Day at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh have turned to be disappointing as the crowd turnout remained below five thousand which they expected to be of ten lakh.
In order to implement their plan, preparations were made at least two days earlier with the volunteers sharing messages inviting people at the protest site.
A protester at the venue conceded that they had hoped to attract ten lakh people for the event but could not.
At the event, the national flag was hoisted by the mother of Rohith Vemula, a deceased student of University of Hyderabad. Vemula’s mother was accompanied by the famous ‘dadis’ of Shaheen Bagh and former JNU student Umar Khalid.
Rohit Vemula became the face of protest at Shaheen Bagh recently as an indication of attempts to forge Muslim-Dalit unity on the issue.
According to observers, the number of attendees did not cross the 5000 mark.
At the venue, the protesters recited the national anthem in unison followed by the sloganeering of ‘Bharat Mata ki jai’, ‘Inquilab zindabad’ and ‘NRC-CAA murdabad’.
From December 15, Shaheen Bagh has been a spot for the protest against the contentious CAA, which the protesters claim to be a non-Muslim legislation.