A day before Diwali, Trinamool Congress members gave the people of Kolkata a gift they will not forget in a hurry. After the arrest of four Trinamool legislators, the party called a two-hour state-wide shutdown from 5pm to 7pm.
They blocked all important junctions, crossings and entry points to Kolkata. Even the Metro Railways, which is in railway minister and Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee’s jurisdiction, was forced to suspend services.
The protest was sparked off by the arrest of four Trinamool MLAs, who unlawfully barged into the state government headquarters, Writers’ Buildings, on Friday and demanded the arrest of chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. They claimed he was “the principal giant, masterminding violence against Trinamool activists”.
When the MLAs — Partho Chattopadhyay, Ashoke Deb, Jyotipriya Mallick and Swarnakamal Saha — started shouting slogans in front of the CM’s room, he was not present at Writers’.
Chief secretary Ashoke Mohan Chakrabarty and home secretary Ardhendu Sen tried to get them to settle the matter amicably. However, they refused. When Bhattacharjee arrived at 4 pm, police escorted him to his room. Soon after, the MLAs were arrested.
It was a token arrest and they were released within an hour.
But, by that time, other Trinamool leaders had let loose their activists on the roads, giving them the mandate to conduct state-wide road blockades for two hours. Mamata Banerjee said, “The police are arresting the attacked, not the attackers. So this protest was needed. Our party has rightly demanded the arrest of the CM for the torture unleashed on our party supporters at his behest.”
“Enough is enough. A limitless torture campaign is going on in the state to gag the voice of the Opposition after the Left parties’ defeat in the elections,” she said.
