About 50 lakh commuters, who use the service of Bombay Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking (BEST) have been left stranded, as the BEST employees on Friday began an indefinite strike demanding pay revision.

Although an Industrial Court has termed the strike call as illegal, and the BEST has warned disciplinary action against employees participating in the stir, sources said that the stir is likely to hit the city and suburban bus transport system. Nearly 3200 BEST buses will stay off the road on Friday while as many as 44,000 BEST employees joined the stir called in support of their pay revision demands.

To top it all up, BEST’s union leader Sharad Rao has threatened to bring Mumbai to a standstill if striking BEST workers are sacked under the Maharashtra Essential Services Maintenance Act (MESMA).

As per Mid-Day ^[1] report, these are his very words.

“If they are sacked, the unions will disrupt all essential services across Mumbai and bring the city to a standstill.”

These services include public transport, hospitals, schools, water supply and electricity. Sharad Rao’s threat came after the state considered the option of invoking the law, which prohibits BEST employees from going on strike as they provide an essential service. When talks with the administration failed yesterday, Rao launched an indefinite BEST strike. The BEST employees’ unions and the management are at loggerhead over the Justice Kurdukar pay revision committee, whose recommendations are not acceptable to the employees.

Sharad Roa’s threat doesn’t come as a surprise, BEST employess are known for such crude tactics. And they continue to set a bad example for other Worker’s Union across the country.