It was a case of changing tack on Sunday for the TMC. A key get-together with the legislators was nixed after only a handful showed up, with the party putting it down to the after-effects of what they say were assaults on some of their senior men. With 60 or so of their 80 MLAs no-shows, the plan is to have a head-on with the BJP across the state.
Protests take priority over party huddle
Kunal Ghosh, the TMC’s face to the media, put it down to the way things are on the ground. The MLAs he said were preoccupied with emergencies, so the session Mamata Banerjee was to have led has been put on hold. In the party’s telling, the poor turnout is because of the kind of trouble and police heat their people have been in.
Ghosh made it clear that in the coming 48 hours you can expect a lot more of this kind of thing from West Bengal – a way of making sure the anger is felt on the pavement.
Here is the lay of the land, as per Ghosh:
– Rallies at the block and ward level come Monday, June 1st
– We will be holding our ground in central Kolkata with a day-long sit-in on Tuesday
– You’ll find us at the Rani Rashmoni Road site in Esplanade
– It’s about the attacks on our leaders and the bulldozers being used to oust hawkers
– More on the docket to be let out on the 2nd
What triggered the churn
The TMC will have you believe the disruption is all down to two incidents. Take Saturday: Abhishek Banerjee was in South 24 Parganas to see the family of Sanju Karmakar, who the party says was put to death in the post-poll mayhem, when he was waylaid.
Police have it that he was pelted with stones, eggs and even shoes. Some would have it that strangers were bellowing ‘thief’ and making for the TMC MP. If you look at the video, you can see him in a helmet with his shirt in tatters as security makes a path for him.
Then there was Kalyan Banerjee on Sunday, who claims he was made for near the Chanditala station in Hooghly as he was on his way to file a deputation. That has set TMC workers in the rest of the state to work.
Inside the cancelled meet
The session was to have started at 3 in the afternoon at the Kalighat home of the chief. Some 20 of them turned up before it was called. Those in the know say Mamata had a word with the ones who were there.
Ghosh’s line is that the ones who didn’t show up let the top brass know they were tied up with some of the more pressing matters on the ground, like looking after workers in custody. He pointed to some ‘severe’ police response to local protests as the reason for asking to move the date.
So the legislative wing of the TMC has decided to table the matter for now, in what Ghosh calls a ‘legitimate request’. He is quick to add that the MLAs are in step with the party and we will be told when the next one is on.
Political fault lines and what comes next
The TMC is calling the run-in with Abhishek Banerjee a setup. The BJP won’t have any of it, saying the locals were just venting their spleen at the old guard.
But with the Monday rally and a sit-in on Rani Rashmoni Road under the watch of Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday, you can bet the stand-off will intensify. They also want to draw attention to what they call the inhumane way hawkers have been run off with the help of heavy machinery.
There is a method to the schedule: build up your base in the open before you go back to the drawing board. The next couple of days will tell if the TMC can pull it off without losing its head after a meeting derailed by the unrest.
You could say the decision to wait was on purpose. The party is in a mood to put out fires for its workers and make hay of the latest provocation. As for anything else, Ghosh says we will hear from the dharna on the 2nd.
In the end, the scuttled meeting is a numbers game. They figure the show of force is worth more than a reset in the assembly right now. We will see if it was the right call once the dust settles and the MLAs are back in a room together.
