Other States - West Bengal

Trinamool bandh affects life

By Malabika Bhattacharya

The Trinamool Congress supremo, Mamata Banerjee, leading a rally during the bandh called by the party in Kolkata on Friday. — Photo: Sushanta Patronobish.

KOLKATA JUNE 7. The Trinamool Congress-sponsored bandh in West Bengal was near "total'' in Kolkata and adjoining districts. The bandh was called to protest the increase in electricity tariff, distress sale of paddy and delay in giving teachers' salaries.

"Today's spontaneous bandh was actually a red alert to the ruling communists on Bengal's alarming economic situation,'' the Trinamool Congress leader, Mamata Banerjee, said.

In Kolkata and a few districts, schools and colleges were closed and examinations in the Kolkata University were postponed. Attendance in business establishments was thin. All the main markets downed their shutters. The State Government employees, a majority of whom are controlled by the ruling leftists, reported for work.

The commuters from the city and the suburbs failed to make it to their places of work as hundreds of Trinamool Congress supporters squatted on the railway tracks in both the eastern and the south-eastern sections. Over 700 Trinamool Congress supporters were rounded up from across the State, most of them for obstructing railway tracks while the rest for stoning the State-run buses. The city's underground railway was, however, operational but had few users.

The only incident in the otherwise peaceful bandh occurred when Ms. Banerjee complained of "uneasiness'' while leading a party procession here. She was immediately taken to her south Kolkata residence where her doctor declared her condition as stable.

Her aides said Ms. Banerjee suffered from exhaustion after the whirlwind tour of the districts over the past few days in support of the bandh.

Roads in Kolkata, which remain choc-a-bloc with buses, trams, cars, trucks, autorickshaws and cycles, were deserted today.Subrata Mukherjee, Mayor of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation currently run by the Trinamool Congress, surprised many when he attended office.

" I am holding an office and, hence, cannot stay away from work,'' he said.

Mr. Mukherjee is among the party functionaries who was opposed to the bandh as they felt that it would only alienate the party from the common man further.

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