Rank’s bamboo message to brass

Posted on Thursday, April 29th, 2010 by in Raiganj.

Youth Congress activists owing allegiance to Deepa Das Munshi today smashed a car and locked up the state Congress headquarters for an hour, apparently to send a message to the leadership that seat-sharing for the Calcutta Municipal Corporation polls must not be on Mamata Banerjee’s terms.

The demonstration took place hours after the two state Congress working presidents — Pradip Bhattacharya and Subrata Mukherjee — reached Delhi to try and work out with state party chief Pranab Mukherjee an “honourable” formula on splitting seats with ally Trinamul Congress.

“We have requested Pranabda to ensure that Mamata offers us 51 of the 141 wards in Calcutta. Our workers won’t accept 21 seats, the number being offered by her party,” Bhattacharya said from Delhi.

He was hopeful about another round of talks with Mamata “in a day or two to honourably resolve the impasse”.

State Congress sources said they were expecting the high command to intervene, given that the filing of nominations was to begin on Monday and continue for only a week. Some Congress sources indicated that 35 to 40 seats could be acceptable to the party.

The Congress’s four district presidents in Calcutta — Pradip Ghosh, Nirbed Roy, Santosh Pathak and Pranab Basu — also left for Delhi today.

“We want to tell the party brass that it is humiliating for us to accept 21 seats of which 13 are now represented by Left councillors. If we accept Trinamul’s terms, it will trigger widespread resentment. Today’s protest was a hint of what might follow,” said Ghosh.

Over 200 activists armed with bamboo sticks and placards saying “Our leaders must not surrender to Mamata Banerjee” descended on Bidhan Bhavan this afternoon. Soon, the slogans targeted leaders “bent on forging the alliance at the cost of the party”.

Some of the activists smashed the windscreen of a parked Ambassador. It belongs to state Congress secretary Nirmalendu Bhattacharya, one of the few leaders inside the office at the time.

Sources said his car was targeted as it was the only one around and not because he was more pro-alliance than others.

“We wanted to warn some of our leaders against accepting Mamata Banerjee’s formula,” said Rakesh Singh, a Youth Congress secretary. He added that the party office was locked up to warn these leaders that they would face the same eventuality if “the seat deal is not an honourable one”.

Asked if Raiganj MP Deepa Das Munshi had sent them, he denied it. “We did not speak to Boudi (Das Munshi) before today’s demonstration. It was spontaneous,” Singh said.

Das Munshi, who has been critical of Mamata’s “bullying” in the past, denied any link with the vandalism.

However, Singh is known to be close to Das Munshi.

Subrata Mukherjee said from Delhi tonight that Pranab Mukherjee had told him the Calcutta deadlock would be broken by Wednesday.

Source: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100425/jsp/bengal/story_12378395.jsp