Left-leaning intellectuals took out a massive rally in Calcutta on Monday, demanding the dissolution of the Mamata Banerjee-led cabinet, which they accused of being neck-deep in corruption.
Monday’s rally was the launchpad for the Left Front’s initiative to create a strong public opinion across the state in favour of their fight to force the Trinamul government to step down.
“The legal and political battle will continue. But the opinion of citizens is very crucial in this case. That was the idea behind this rally,” said CPM Rajya Sabha member and one of the organisers of the rally, Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya.
“Next we will take this programme to the micro-level and create a public opinion against this government,” he added.
Several members of Bengal’s civil society, including academic Pabitra Sarkar, thespians Bimal Chakraborty and Chandan Sen, poet Mandakranta Sen, and filmmakers Kamaleswar Mukherjee and Anik Dutta joined the rally.
Left Front chairman Biman Bose, CPM veterans Surjya Kanta Mishra, Rabin Deb, CPM state secretary Md Salim and leaders from other Left parties took part in the rally.
Salim refused to answer questions from journalists. “I’m here as a concerned citizen of Bengal. I’ll not reply to political questions here,” Salim told journalists.
Senior Left leaders walked behind the civil society members in the protest march.
Even Bhattacharya, the legal counsel for job-seekers in the teacher recruitment scam, walked behind junior lawyers.
The intellectuals said that if a proper probe was conducted “several Trinamul leaders would be found guilty of the crime that Partha Chatterjee has perpetrated”.
The rally, which began in front of Victoria House in Calcutta and concluded at the protest site of the SSC job-seekers near the Gandhi statue on Mayo Road, saw several passers-by join in. One woman, holding the hand of her son in school uniform, was marching in front of the rally.
When asked why she took the trouble of walking her child in a rally, the woman said it was for her son’s future. “Corruption in education is dangerous. If people who know nothing teach in schools what kind of future will my child have?” the woman asked.
“Our students and youth wings are busy with their respective programmes and couldn’t participate today. Yet there was a massive crowd when we had called the rally only on Saturday,” Bhattacharya said.
BJP protest
In Delhi, Bengal BJP MPs took part in a demonstration in front of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue on the premises of Parliament. Holding placards and raising slogans, BJP MPs demanded Mamata’s resignation. BJP sources said leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Suvendu Adhikari would reach Delhi on Tuesday to meet senior party leaders.
“The agenda of the meeting is unknown to us,” said a senior BJP leader.
