Bharat Bandh 9 July 2025: A joint forum of 10 trade unions have called for a nationwide strike today, July 9, in protest against the four labour codes, contractualisation, and privatisation of PSUs among others.
The Bharat Bandh today is expected to affect public services including transportation.
Here are 10 key points you should know about the Bharat Bandh on July 9:
1. Amarjeet Kaur from All India Trade Union Congress told PTI that over 25 crore workers including farmers and rural workers will take part in the strike and join protests across the country.
2. Effects of the Bharat Bandh were felt in parts of West Bengal, including Kolkata where workers from left party trade unions lit fire in protest. Left workers entered the Jadavpur railway station to block the railway tracks to mark their protest. Heavy police force was deployed at the Jadavpur 8B bus stand as workers continued to protest.
3. Banking, postal, coal mining, factories, state transport services are expected to be affected in many areas across India due to the Bharat Bandh today.
4. A forum of 10 central trade unions and their associates has called for a general strike or ‘Bharat Bandh’ to “oppose the anti-worker, anti-farmer and anti-national pro-corporate policies of the government”.
5. In a statement, the forum has called for making “the nationwide general strike a grand success”.
6. An association of bank employees on Monday said the banking sector will join the Bharat Bandh today, a statement issued by the Bengal Provincial Bank Employees Association said. This is likely to hit banking services in West Bengal.
7. Kerala Transport Minister K B Ganesh Kumar said that state-run KSRTC buses would continue operating on Wednesday, despite the Bharat Bandh called today.
8. Schools and colleges are expected to largely function normally amid the nationwide strike, except for local pockets where the heat of the Bharat Bandh is expected to be felt. Some schools in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry have been closed, according to reports.
9. The NREGA Sangharsh Morcha has called for MGNREGA workers across the length and breadth of the country to participate in the general strike. Their demands include wages of Rs. 800 per day, resumption of MGNREGA in West Bengal, scrapping NMMS and ABPS, among other things.
10. The forum has alleged that the economic policies are resulting into more unemployment, rising prices of essential commodities, depression in wages, cut in social sector spending in education, health, basic civic amenities, and all these are leading to more inequalities and miseries for poor, people of lower income group as well as the middle class.