CM visits Martyrs' Day venue to inspect final preparations
Kolkata: Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee visited the venue in front of Victoria House at Esplanade on Friday evening for around half-an-hour to oversee the last minute arrangements for the Martyrs' Day rally on Saturday.
This is the 25th year of the Martyrs' Day and the TMC will be observing it as "Angikar Divas" too.
After inspection, Banerjee said: "We are observing the day as Martyrs' Day for the past 25 years. This is a programme of the Maa Mati Manush."
Urging people to take all precautions while heading towards the venue to avoid any untoward incident, she said: "People have already started coming to the city to be a part of the rally. More people will be coming in and they should take all the safety measures while travelling in buses and trains so that no untoward incident takes place."
The Chief Minister further said: "There could be some traffic congestion and I had urged Partha Chatterjee to tender our apology to the people for the same. But we will try our best so that there is no inconvenience."
She also urged people from adjoining districts heading towards the venue by organising processions to ensure that the roads are cleared to give passage to ambulances and fire tenders.
She further added that families of the martyrs' will be present at the rally on Saturday. "Mother of martyr Nurul Islam will also be present if her health permits."
Trinamool Congress president Subrata Bakshi, secretary general Partha Chatterjee and senior party leaders including Firhad Hakim and Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay were also present at the venue on Friday.
Abhishek Banerjee, president of the party's youth wing, also took stock of the preparations to ensure that people do not face any difficulty while heading towards the venue and while returning as well.
All MPs and most MLAs of the party, councillors of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), senior leaders of the party and intellectuals will be present on the dais of the Martyrs' Day rally. All will be waiting for the party supremo to address the gathering.
Senior party leaders were busy for the past few days as people from far-flung areas had already started pouring into the city to attend the Martyrs' Day rally from where they would listen to Mamata Banerjee's speech that the political experts are considering extremely important ahead of the general elections in 2019.
Senior party leader Jyotipriya Mallick was also present at Milan Mela where party workers are staying for the past few days. Arrangements have also been made for party workers at Uttirnya.
Since morning, a large number of party workers have been reaching Howrah and Sealdah stations. They were sent to Milan Mela and Uttirnya in buses. Tents have been set up at both Howrah and Sealdah stations to assist people.
Rajeev Kumar, Commissioner of Police and Supratim Sarkar, Joint Commissioner of Police (Headquarters) also inspected the venue on Friday morning.
All measures have been taken to ensure that no untoward incident takes place during the rally. Additional policemen will be deployed.
The police are expecting that this time around 17,000 vehicles will enter the city just for the rally. Last year, the number was around 13,000. Vehicles had to be parked on particular roads and six teams of the Kolkata Traffic Police will be deployed since Friday night to ensure that vehicles are parked at the right places. It would be better to avoid the thoroughfares including Jawaharlal Nehru Road, RR Avenue, SN Banerjee Road and certain stretches of Chittaranjan Avenue. The diversions of vehicles will be done as and when required. Heavy rainfall has been predicted in one or two places over Kolkata on Saturday.
