India's financial capital Mumbai is under siege Monday as over 200,000 workers are due to join a protest march organized by Hindu fundamentalist group Shiv Sena to protest against inflation, privatization and anti-labor policies of the Congress government. Traffic jams began from early Monday morning in Mumbai as tens of thousands of workers arrived from all over the western state of Maharashtra, according to local media reports.
The protest came ahead of a two-day nationwide strike to be organized by the country's major trade unions from Wednesday. The protest march also drew support from almost all of the three dozen top labor organizations, cutting across party affiliation and including banking, insurance and financial sector unions.
Over 2,000 police personnel have been deployed around Azad Maidan in south Mumbai, opposite the historical Victorian era Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station, the scene of violent clashes between demonstrators and the police in the past.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called on unions to call off the nationwide strike and promised to discuss the issues raised by them to seek a mutually acceptable solution.
India's inflation rate stands at about 10 percent and the government has recently raised the price of diesel and gas.