Mamata Banerjee’s Metro Channel dharna last week has apparently triggered the plan for a slew of protests on the site by Opposition parties, which want to challenge her government’s stand against allowing political programmes at the venue in the heart of the city.

The Congress, BJP and the CPM are jostling with the administration for their “right” to conduct political programmes at the Metro Channel, which the Trinamul Congress chief herself had popularised as a protest venue during her days in the Opposition. But the site has been off limits for activism after Mamata ascended to power.

On Monday, Bengal’s leader of Opposition Abdul Mannan, along with 59 Congress activists, courted arrest at Esplanade for trying to stage a protest against the Mamata government for alleged delay in action in deposit default cases.

Carrying anti-Trinamul banners and posters, hundreds of Congress workers tried to occupy the Metro Channel, demanding answers from both Mamata and the BJP government at the Centre.

The police made the arrests as the Congress did not have permission to hold the programme there and refused to stop the demonstration.

“The rules here are different for the rulers and the ruled…. That’s what we wanted to underscore anyway,” said Mannan.

The rejuvenation of the Metro Channel-centric activism was spurred by Mamata’s 70-hour Save India dharna after the CBI landed on the doorstep of Calcutta police commissioner Rajeev Kumar on Sunday evening.

The chief minister’s agitation was reminiscent of her 26-day fast at the Metro Channel in 2006 to protest land acquisition in Singur, which eventually propelled her to power in 2011.

The decision marked a shift from her government’s stand against allowing political programmes — she later clarified that hers was an “apolitical satyagraha” — on the site on the grounds of the impact on traffic flow in vast areas of central Calcutta.

Not long after she called off her dharna on Tuesday evening, the Opposition parties planned their own programmes at the venue.

Sources in all three Opposition parties said they were aware that the administration would not allow them and the focus on the Metro Channel was with the objective of exposing alleged hypocrisy of the ruling establishment.

“This is just an effort to get under the ruling dispensation’s skin,” said a BJP leader.

The BJP has formally sought permission to hold a three-day dharna at the Metro Channel from February 21.

“We have sent a letter to Lalbazar, seeking permission for holding our dharna between February 21 and 23, to save democracy in Bengal,” said BJP state general secretary Sayantan Basu.

“If we are denied permission, we will be forced to move court, seeking reasons for the administrative discrimination between the ruling party and Opposition in the state,” he added.

Later this month, the CPM’s Siliguri MLA and mayor Asok Bhattacharya plans to launch his own dharna against the Mamata government for its alleged step-motherly attitude towards the Left-run Siliguri Municipal Corporation.

“I will write to Calcutta police, seeking permission for the Metro Channel dharna. If the police deny us permission, we will conduct it anyway,” said Bhattacharya.