People's Democracy

B Prasant

RESPONDING magnificently to the call of the central TU’s, Bengal witnessed a virtual general strike on April 16. TU’s, employees’ associations, as well as officers’ organisations came out in a comprehensive condemnation of the anti-people economic policy of the BJP-led union government and ensured that the strike was a complete success. Apart from the PSU’s, the banks, the ports-and-docks and the airports, Bengal saw virtually every office and establishment, including educational institutions and government offices down shutters from very early in the morning on April 16. Courts of law remained closed.

Buses and trams, truck and lorries, taxis and three-wheelers, did not ply. The Kolkata and Haldia ports dozed off in the blazing sun of the early afternoon. Train services were severely affected, as was the metro railway. The Kolkata airport wore a deserted look. In the districts, as in the state capital, the busy streets were taken over by the various TU’s and by the employees’ and officers’ associations whose members strode along the thoroughfares and shouted slogans throughout the day against the anti-people and anti-worker policy of the BJP-led central government.

Biman Basu, chairman, Bengal Left Front has congratulated the people for ensuring that the strike was a complete triumph. The Bengal Left Front had earlier come forward to lend its support to the strike call.

Speaking to the INN, general secretary of the Bengal unit of the CITU, Chittabrata Majumdar said that the success of the strike action once again underlined the fact that the mass of the people stood against the economic and financial policies of the BJP-led NDA government. The union government must either reverse its anti-people policies or quit, said Majumdar. The CITU extended its felicitations to the working people of Bengal for having made the strike a comprehensive success.

Pointing to the unity of the TU’s in coming forward to make the strike a notable success, Majumdar noted that in the days ahead the unity would get further strengthened as part of an ongoing process towards a more comprehensive, all-India unity of the working people.

Majumdar underlined how every TU unit in Bengal came forward to lend their support to the strike action and how despite the hype of the eleventh-hour disclaimers issued to the media to the contrary, the INTUC was very much active in making the strike a success especially in sectors like the coalfields, the banks, the ports-and-docks, and the financial institutions. The Bengal unit of the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, too, came out openly in support of the strike action, noted Majumdar.

The Trinamul Congress MLA’s tried to steal a bit of limelight when they grandly informed a section of the Kolkata media that they had "broken down the locks to the front gate of the Vidhan Sabha Bhavan to gain an entry." The truth was rather more mundane. When the Trinamul Congress MLA’s approached the gates and put on a display for the TV cameras by striking rather unfruitfully at the locks, the Marshall of the House came politely forward and clicked opened the gates with his keys