New Delhi: Maharashtra's INDIA bloc leaders met in Mumbai on Thursday (August 14) to voice their opposition to the Special Public Security Bill, which was passed by the state legislature last month and has been flagged for its potential for misuse against dissidents.

Sharad Pawar, chief of the eponymous faction of the Nationalist Congress Party, acknowledged that the opposition did not deal with the Bill ‘as effectively as it should have been’ dealt with in the legislature, even as he said the law threatens people's thoughts and fundamental rights.

“Therefore, whatever may have happened in the legislature, we will at least have to go to every corner of Maharashtra”, make its people “aware of this [law], fight and keep away all these extreme reactionary forces,” Pawar said on X after the gathering.

The Hindu cited social activist Ulka Mahajan as saying that a state-wide protest against the Bill is in the works for September 10 alongside public meetings in opposition MLAs' constituencies to raise awareness about the legislation.

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray, who also attended the meeting, said the Bill is against an undefined extreme Left as against being explicitly against “treason”.

“Whoever is involved in anti-national activities, hang them to death, but the Act [Bill] has no mention of treason. Instead, it talks about extremist leftists, which is also not defined. Let the government clearly say that the law is against those involved in anti-national activities, we will extend support…” he said as per The Hindu.

Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) MP Supriya Sule, Congress state unit chief Harshvardhan Sapkal and Communist Party of India (Marxist) state general secretary Ajit Navale were among other INDIA bloc leaders who attended the gathering in Mumbai's Yashwantrao Chavan Centre.

Passed by both houses of the state's legislature last month and awaiting the governor's sign-off, the Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill declares that the “menace of Naxalism [a term used interchangeably with Maoism] is not only limited to remote areas of the Naxal-affected states, but its presence is increasing in the urban areas also through the Naxal frontal organisations”.

However, the term ‘frontal organisations’ is loosely used against organisations that the government considers an affront to its policies, and rights activists have expressed apprehension that the Bill allows for overreach and criminalising any act of dissent as ‘Naxalism’.

Its defining ‘unlawful activity’ as that which is a ‘menace to public order’, ‘interferes or tends to interfere with the administration of law’ or ‘encourages or preaches disobedience to established law and its institutions’ – terms that are left unexplained – may amount to widening restrictions on free speech beyond their constitutional limits, PRS Legislative Research said in a brief.

It also does not require judicial oversight of the government's declaration of organisations as ‘unlawful’, its actions against such collectives' properties and funds, as well as its conduct of searches on such organisations, it also pointed out.

Notably, apart from the Communist Party of India (Marxist)'s lone MLA Vinod Nikole, the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi's remaining 53 MLAs did not oppose the Bill in the state assembly.

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