Kolkata Corporation Official Heckled, 

Mayoral Council Dissolved

 B Prasant

IN an unprecedented incident even for a bunch of rowdies who make up the Trinamul Congress, seven members of the mayor-in-council proceeded to assault the municipal commissioner, an officer in the Indian Administrative Service, when he quoted rules to say that he was bound to take orders from the mayor alone, and not from the members of the council. 

Besides assaulting the officer, a section of the council members sprouted the choicest of invectives against the mayor himself, allegedly at the instigation of chieftain Mamata Banerjee who had lately started to realise how the Trinamul Congress mayor Subrata Mukherjee was no longer willing to act a minion. 

Under pressure from his own fraction, Subrata Mukherjee, who had once led an assault himself on Rabindra Sadan cultural complex while a minister in the Congress government, was forced to dissolve the council. Interestingly enough, he himself did not put in his papers.

Reacting to the incident, state CPI(M) secretary Anil Biswas said the denizens of Kolkata should pause and think whom they had voted for to run the Kolkata Municipal Corporation back in 2000.  Biswas said the Left Front did not intend to take advantage of the present condition to make a bid to control the corporation board in any circumstances. The chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and the urban development minister Ashok Bhattacharya too strongly condemned the incident.

The incident was the climax of a tremendous inner tension, which had been building up for some time in the Trinamul Congress in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. The group opposing the Subrata Mukherjee faction had had a virtual running battle with the mayor for quite some time now, often with tacit support from Mamata Banerjee. As a result, civic services have deteriorated fast all over the metropolis with disruption of water supply, badly potholed roads, and piles of garbage causing great misery and woe to the urban population. If the imbroglio continues, the coming days would certainly see more misfortunes for the citizens of Kolkata.

As we file this report, word comes that Mamata Banerjee (whose past records include assaulting police officers) has managed to browbeat mayor Subrata Mukherjee into withdrawing the order for dissolution of the council. Mamata Banerjee also appeared in court for the accused councillors who had led the physical assault on the commissioner, (and who were subsequently taken into custody), and obtained bail for them on personal bonds. As Anil Biswas put it, “The whole sordid drama is another example of burgeoning inner-party dissensions, and of rampant corruption existing, and growing, in the Trinamul Congress.”

In the meanwhile, and for a refreshing change, the Pradesh Congress leadership has called for a “full CBI inquiry into the episode.”  One Pradesh Congress leader pointed out that the party that had dubbed the Pradesh Congress as the “B” team of the CPI(M) “has itself given a very useful handle to the CPI(M) to try and embarrass the Trinamul Congress-run Kolkata Municipal Corporation board with.” State BJP chief Tathagata Roy would not comment on the episode beyond saying that he would “have the matter looked into” before making any move. One will note that deputy mayor Meena Purohit belongs to the BJP.