At least five political programmes, all of which were attended by supporters from various parts of Kolkata, caused major traffic disruptions across the city on Wednesday.
Traffic was severely affected on AJC Bose Road, APC Road, Jawaharlal Nehru Road, stretches of Chittaranjan Avenue, Bhupen Bose Avenue, Mayo Road, Red Road, AJC Bose Road flyover, Parama flyover, Park Circus seven-point crossing, Syed Amir Ali Avenue, Shakespeare Sarani, Park Street and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road.
The Sealdah flyover chock-a-block with vehicles on Wednesday afternoon
The traffic alert prompted ISC and CBSE examinees to start early. Many of them reached their exam venues almost an hour before the scheduled deadline for arrival.
Those who were unaware of the multiple rallies were stuck in traffic snarls and complained of inconvenience as vehicles were diverted at multiple points.
The police said there were no reports of examinees reaching their test venues late. Many students The Telegraph spoke to said they did not take chances and started from their homes almost an hour before they usually do.
A student at La Martiniere for Girls, who lives barely 4km from her school, started at 11.30am and reached the school by 12.20pm. The test was to start at 2pm.
Like her, many others reported early in the south and central Kolkata to avoid the rush. However, while returning home, many of them were caught in snarls.
The police said they were still busy managing rally traffic when this newspaper spoke to an officer in south Kolkata around 6.30pm.
“It took me more than 30 minutes just to cross the Park Street flyover. The taxi was crawling. As I reached the landing towards Esplanade, I got off the cab and started walking,” said Sangita Sinha, a resident of Bhowanipore in south Kolkata, who was caught in the snarl around 2.30pm at Esplanade and had to walk to her destination on Ganesh Chandra Avenue in the central part.
Around 2.30pm, many school students were seen walking along the median divider on Jawaharlal Nehru Road. They had alighted from a bus that was stuck on the western flank of the road.
In one of the rallies, Trinamul Congress supporters marched from across the city to Saheed Minar, where party national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee addressed a meeting. Close to the venue, chief minister Mamata Banerjee held a sit-in at the base of the BR Ambedkar statue off Red Road.
A stone’s throw from the site was a sit-in that had many more people than usual, demanding dearness allowance from the state government on a par with the central rate.
CPM and Congress supporters walked in a joint rally towards the city centre from Moulali. The march choked traffic again on APC Road, SN Banerjee Road and Jawaharlal Nehru Road.
A BJP meeting at Shyambazar hit traffic on Chittaranjan Avenue, Bhupen Bose Avenue, Hatibagan and APC Road. Vehicles bound for the city centre from North and South 24-Parganas were not allowed on the Parama and AJC Bose Road flyovers, resulting in a surge in traffic volume underneath.
Rallyists from north and east Kolkata approached the city centre through SN Banerjee Road, AJC Bose Road, Syed Amir Ali Avenue, Park Circus and APC Road, bringing traffic to a halt in phases.
Around 1.50pm, both flanks of the Sealdah flyover were chock-a-block with vehicles.
A senior police officer of the traffic department said diversions were effected from time to time depending on the volume of traffic on a particular stretch.