Siliguri mayor gets protest hub & civic cash Bengal govt move could trump BJP

Bhattacharya at the Metro Channel in Calcutta on Friday. (Biswarup Dutta)

Sandip Chowdhury, TT, 2 March 2019, Calcutta: The CPM landed surprise gains on Friday amid the Trinamul-BJP turf war in Bengal, with the ruling establishment allowing a dharna by Siliguri mayor Asok Bhattacharya at the Metro Channel and then sanctioning Rs 30 crore for north Bengal’s lone Left-run civic body.

Metro Channel has been virtually off-limits for Opposition parties’ programmes. Bhattacharya had announced the dharna last month to demand the release of funds for the civic body but CPM insiders weren’t sure if the protest could fructify as police have refused permission for political events on the site in the heart of the city.

On Friday, though, Bhattacharya, CPM’s Rabin Deb and Sujan Chakraborty and others protested from noon to 4pm. Cops ensured the dharna went off without any problems.

“We had no police permission but we were adamant on holding the dharna on the site where the chief minister had protested last month (after the CBI landed at the door of then Calcutta police chief Rajeev Kumar’s residence). It is our victory that despite being a leader from north Bengal, virtually an outsider in Calcutta, we could hold it peacefully without police resistance,” Bhattacharya said.

Some CPM insiders recalled that a march by their peasant wing from Singur to the Raj Bhavan on November 28 last year had also received administrative support. The Left’s Brigade Rally on February 3 went off peacefully too.

“Till a year ago, we could not hold programmes. But the situation seems to have changed. Unlike the BJP, which is facing problems in holding its programmes, we are not facing stiff resistance. Probably, the chief minister wants us to be seen and heard more so that the BJP, her main enemy, suffers,” said a CPM state committee member

The only resistance on Friday was in Siliguri where Trinamul councillors protested outside Bhattacharya’s chamber. “The mayor is politicising matters,” said Trinamul’s Ranjan Sarkar, leader of the Opposition.

In Calcutta, within hours of Bhattacharya winding up his dharna, sources in the Writers’ Buildings said municipal affairs minister Firhad Hakim had cleared Rs 30 crore for the civic body. “It came like a windfall for us. We gained attention with the dharna. The instant release of Rs 30 crore was a collateral gain,” said Kamal Agarwal, a Siliguri mayoral council member.

Bhattacharya met Hakim and later quoted the minister as saying on a lighter note that the CPM veteran’s dharna at the Metro Channel had “fetched Rs 30 crore within four hours”, while “Mamata’s Save India Dharna” for 70 hours last month had yielded “moral victory”.

Additional reporting by Avijit Sinha in Siliguri