Watch: Mumbai woman confronts BJP leader for blocking road for protest

Videos of a commuter in Mumbai confronting Bharatiya Janata Party leader Girish Mahajan and police personnel for blocking a road during a protest march were widely shared on social media on Tuesday.

The protest by the ruling Mahayuti coalition led to traffic congestion in the Worli area on Tuesday. The protest was to be held at the Jambori Maidan. The woman reportedly stepped out of her vehicle, and was heard asking Mahajan and the police officers not to block the road and protest at a ground instead.

The woman, whose identity is unclear, said that she had been stuck in the traffic and had to pick up her child. She told a police officer that she had been waiting in traffic for more than an hour.

When Mahajan asked her to calm down, the woman asked him to “get out of here”.

“What is wrong with you?” she asked. “There are hundreds of people waiting. There's an empty ground there.”

She asked the police to clear the traffic.

On Wednesday, Mahajan told IANS that the woman was not wrong.

However, he said that a protest march such as this, irrespective of the organiser “has to move from one place to another” which would mean that the “road is bound to be blocked”.

“Some inconvenience is inevitable in any protest,” he said. “Still, there is a proper way to express anger and I feel the language used was inappropriate.”

Aam Aadmi Party’s Mumbai chief Preeti Sharma Menon said that while the police allow protests only at Azad Maidan, the BJP “was allowed to protest on the roads”.

In August, the Maharashtra government had designated Azad Maidan as the only venue for all protests in South Mumbai.

The woman was praised by social media users.

A user said that the BJP’s “event-mongering has now started directly testing the patience” of residents. “Is jamming the roads and harassing ordinary people just to spread a false narrative in the name of women's reservation really your politics?” the handle asked on social media platform X.

The BJP was protesting against the Opposition for defeating a constitutional amendment bill in Parliament on Friday. The ruling party claimed that the opposition was against women’s interests because it stood against what the BJP describes as the women’s reservation bill.

The 2026 Constitution 131st Amendment Bill, one of three draft legislations, was defeated in the Lok Sabha. As a constitutional amendment bill, it required a two-thirds majority of votes to pass. The ruling National Democratic Alliance does not have a two-thirds majority of MPs in any House and had required the support of the Opposition to pass the amendment.

Opposition parties have maintained that they supported the amendments to the Women’s Reservation Act, but were opposed to the proposed delimitation of electoral constituencies.

Commenting on the video of the confrontation on Tuesday, a social media user said that the woman had “taught a very good lesson to these two-bit leaders who keep harassing the public day and night”.

Another user said that “BJP’s ‘Nari Shakti’ [women power] drama in Mumbai got busted by one bold woman!”

“They blocked Worli roads for hours ‘for women’s reservation’ – while real women were stuck in traffic, late to pick up kids,” the account said.

The user added: “Protesting for women by torturing women? The hypocrisy is real. Even women aren't buying this anymore. Real Nari Shakti doesn’t block roads.”

Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi praised the woman “who showed a mirror to minister Girish Mahajan and BJP protesters for blocking traffic to carry out their political protest”.

The woman’s anger “is not just of hers but every single Mumbaikar who face the commute woes”, she added.

Chaturvedi asked asked: “Why was BJP protesting on the streets instead of designated ground? Who gave them the permission to carry out the protest during peak traffic hours? Why should people suffer due to political showmanship of BJP?”

The women’s wing of the Congress said that the woman was brave and had “raised her voice and gave a proper scolding to the shameless BJP minister who was shedding crocodile tears!”