Shankar Ghosh, the BJP MLA of Siliguri, stopped the work of widening a prominent thoroughfare in the city on Thursday, alleging that the Trinamool Congress-run Siliguri Municipal Corporation (SMC) was destroying the green cover by chopping down hundreds of trees.

He was accompanied by BJP councillors at the SMC.

Ghosh reached the Station Feeder Road that connects the Siliguri Town station with Jalpai More and stopped the work.

The SMC, along with the state PWD, took the task of widening the road to ease traffic in the thoroughfare.

“The mayor (Gautam Deb) has planned to destroy the green cover of Siliguri by indiscriminately uprooting trees from different streets. We don’t know whether any committee of experts was formed to discuss and decide on the issue. There is no clarity on whether the civic body has taken permission from the state forest department before uprooting the trees. The civic authorities owe an explanation to people,” said Ghosh.

According to the plan, the road will be widened by 3.75 metres on either side along a 1.3 km stretch. Around ₹5.47 crore will be spent on the project.

Apart from widening, pavers’ blocks will be installed to facilitate pedestrian
movement, and landscaping will be done along the route.

Sources in the SMC said altogether 26 trees would be removed from the road for the project. When the workers started uprooting a tree on Thursday, the MLA and the councillors arrived and held a demonstration.

Because of the protests, representatives of the SMC and the workers left the site.

Deb, the mayor, denied the charge levelled by Ghosh.

“The environment committee of the civic body was formed with the representatives of all political parties. We will replant all uprooted trees near the Naukaghat area of the city. Earlier, we had replanted around 100 trees near the Surya Sen Park and 97 per cent of them have survived,” said Deb.

“These people are indulging in cheap politics without knowing the fact,” the mayor added.