There will be no bandh on Monday: Mamata - Attendance compulsory at govt offices

TT, Calcutta, Nov. 26: The Bengal government has made attendance mandatory at its offices on Monday, when the Left Front will be holding a 12-hour general strike and hartal to protest the demonetisation, and on Tuesday.

The decision makes it clear that Mamata Banerjee will not flinch from her opposition to bandhs. Such pre-bandh directives have been the rule under her administration, but many had wondered if an exception would be made this time since Mamata too was protesting the demonetisation and had invited the Left to join her movement.

"There will be no bandh on Monday.... We will hold a protest rally against demonetisation (in Calcutta on that day)," the chief minister told journalists on her way out of Nabanna, the state secretariat, this evening. (See chart)

Earlier in the day, the finance department had issued a notification stating that no leave would be sanctioned on Monday and Tuesday, barring exceptional cases such as hospitalisation, bereavement and maternity. Earned leave sanctioned before the notification was issued would, however, not be cancelled.

The notification threatens a salary cut if an employee plays truant during this period without a valid reason. One day - or two if he remains absent both on Monday and Tuesday - will be deducted from his service life.

"She has made it clear she will not change her stand on strikes though she is protesting the demonetisation and had invited the CPM to join her. This is a positive message," a bureaucrat said.

Since coming to power in 2011, Mamata has made attendance mandatory for state government employees during strikes.

The first such order was issued ahead of a general strike called by the Left Front on February 28, 2012. The government imposed a day's salary cut on the nearly 60,000 employees who had stayed off work that day without a compelling reason.

Of late, the state government has begun cancelling leave on the day before and after the strike, ostensibly because some employees were falsely citing illness to skip work on the day of the strike and the days immediately preceding and succeeding it.

A finance department official said the average attendance at government offices on the last two bandh days had been 97 per cent.

"The government could not cancel leave on the day preceding Monday's strike because the shutdown was announced on Friday evening, the last working day of the week, and the day before the strike is a Sunday," the official said.

Chief secretary Basudeb Banerjee said the government was confident of ensuring normality on Monday.

"We have sent instructions to the districts, making it clear that steps will have to be initiated to keep life normal on bandh day," he said.

"We have held discussions with central government agencies like the railways, ports and airports and offered all possible assistance to keep services normal."

Cong rallies

Bengal Congress president Adhir Chowdhury today announced his party would neither support nor oppose the Left Front's strike. He said the party would organise its own protests against demonetisation on that day.

At a news conference in Murshidabad, Chowdhury said: "We are not going to support or oppose the strike. We will do our own thing, as part of Aakrosh Divas."

He said rallies would be held across the state. "I have spoken to Rahul Gandhi. There will be rallies and meetings, including some in Calcutta," Chowdhury said.

In Delhi, the Congress today alleged that the Centre's decision to lower the penalty for unaccounted money that is deposited in the banks was an attempt to convert black money into white.

The Centre has said the penalty will be 50 per cent of the unaccounted money. Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had proposed a penalty of 200 per cent.

Congress communications chief Randeep Surjewala said: "New Fair & Lovely scheme coming to convert black money into white by depositing 50 per cent tax. No questions, no prosecution. Is this the new normal Modiji?"