Alliance propels take-back - Intuc, Citu and Bloc take control of offices after three years

Left and Congress supporters in front of the Citu office in Cooch Behar
on Monday. Picture by Main Uddin Chisti

TT, Cooch Behar, March 28: Activists of the Left parties and the Congress, rejuvenated by the alliance campaign for the Assembly elections, today reoccupied three party offices that they said were grabbed by Trinamul in 2013.

Trinamul, though, denied that they had taken over the offices of the Citu, Intuc and the Forward Bloc at a truck terminal about 2km from Cooch Behar town.

Around 10am today, about a hundred flag-bearing CPM, Citu and Congress activists arrived at the truck terminus located in Khagrabari. There are three rooms at the terminal that were the offices of the Citu, Congress and the Bloc.

The group broke into the offices, threw out Trinamul flags and replaced them with their own flags. Central paramilitary jawans were present at the spot.

Mahananda Saha, the CPM district secretariat member and leader of Opposition in the Cooch Behar municipality who led the group, said the three offices, along with many others in the district, were forcibly occupied by Trinamul in April 2013.

Trinamul had taken over the three offices following the alleged heckling of Mamata Banerjee and finance minister Amit Mitra by SFI activists in New Delhi on August 8, 2013.

Saha said the CPM and the Bloc had complained to the police several times but no action was taken.

"The police and the administration did nothing despite our repeated complaints. Even our state secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra had visited Cooch Behar in 2013 and led a team to the district magistrate and demanded that the party offices be handed back to the rightful occupants. But the police and the administration took no action. Today, with the anti-Trinamul alliance growing stronger by the day, we have taken them back. We have also reoccupied our party offices in Sitalkuchi and in Ghughumari in the past two days," Saha said.

Dipak Sarkar, the former Forward Bloc MLA from Cooch Behar (North) and the party's district secretariat member, also criticised the administration. "It is unfortunate that we have had to do what the police was supposed to do. There was no resistance from the Trinamul as they have realised that the forces against their oppression have grown stronger," Sarkar said.

Trinamul leaders said that no one had occupied the party offices. "The charges against us are baseless. Actually, both the Left parties and the Congress did not have any base and that is why the offices were lying empty," said Parimal Barman, the Cooch Behar block Trinamul president and the party candidate from Cooch Behar (North) Assembly seat.