The management of the Tirrihannah tea estate located in Darjeeling district’s Siliguri subdivision on Tuesday alleged that high-handedness of some leaders of Trinamul’s trade union forced them to close the garden.

For the past 45 days, the 1,300-acre garden, some 30km from here in Naxalbari block, has been closed. It had around 1,200 workers.

Nirjal Dey, the Inttuc president of Darjeeling (plains) district, denied the management’s charges. Inttuc is the trade union front of Mamata Banerjee’s party.

“We were forced to announce a lockout in the garden on November 10 (2023) after some of our managerial employees were physically assaulted during a disagreement over the rate of bonus. The assault was orchestrated under the leadership of district Inttuc leaders, including Nirjal Dey,” alleged Ghanshyam Kankani, the garden owner, at a news meet on Tuesday.

“Because of the high-handedness of this leader and some of his associates we could not dispatch around 80,000 kilos of tea from the garden and had to bear a loss of Rs 2.5 crore. They stopped us from sending the teas to our buyers,” added Kankani.

Sources said usually, the garden produces around 16 lakh kilos of CTC tea every year.

“But it was reduced to eight lakhs because some people indulged in sabotage, be it in irrigation or spraying of pesticides. Even adequate leaves were not being plucked from plantations by some workers instigated by certain quarters. This reduced production,” said a source.

Dey brushed aside the charges.

“The management has not been paying the provident fund and gratuity of workers for years now and has announced the lockout without any notice. There are instances when workers have died after retirement without receiving their gratuity. As I am constantly raising these issues with the department concerned, such baseless charges have been brought against me. Such strategies will not work. I have reported the entire matter to the state labour minister and the labour commissioner,” said the Inttuc leader.

Surajit Paul, the general secretary of north Bengal Industries Association, a prominent trade body of the region, was also critical of Dey.

“The workers want the garden to reopen. But efforts taken through administrative channels have remained unsuccessful so far. The intransigence of Nirjal Dey seems to be a part of a deliberate tactic to force the sale of the garden for financial gains,” said Paul.

Responding to Paul, Dey said the allegations were unsubstantiated, unproven and a personal attack on his efforts to work for the rights of tea garden workers.