No bandh on Monday, says Mamata

Criticising the CPI(M) for calling a 12-hour bandh on Monday which will only cause trouble to people, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Saturday urged her party leaders to take every measure to foil the strike and at the same breath asked them not get provoked.

“CPI(M) has called the bandh only to harass the common people and I urge all party workers and leaders to take steps to foil the strike and not to get provoked,” she told her party workers at the core committee meeting held at her Kalighat residence on Saturday afternoon. 

All the core committee members namely Subrata Bakshi, Sovan Chatterjee, Subrata Mukherjee, Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, Mukul Roy and Aroop Biswas were present in the meeting.

“It was me who had protested against demonetisation. I told the media how the hasty decision was going to affect common people and that has now happened. Every day, people are going through this ordeal and no step has been taken yet by the Centre to give relief to them,” she said adding: “But the bandh is no solution and this would further increase their trouble.”

Continuing her tirade against Prime Minister Narendra Modi on demonetisation, she said that she would fight till the end against the “anti-people” decision, which has imposed an “undeclared financial emergency”.

It was Mamata Banerjee who first told the media on the night of November 8 after the Prime Minister had announced demonetisation of high value notes that “it was basically financial emergency and common people would be badly hit.”

It may be mentioned that after coming to power in 2011, Banerjee declared that her party would not call bandh that had become a culture in Bengal under the CPI(M) regime to voice protest. It was always a state-sponsored bandh in Bengal. 

During the bandh, vehicles were off the roads and even willing employees could not join work as the offices would remain closed. Even the employees of the Central government’s offices were not allowed to join work. In the past six years, not a single bandh has been called by the Trinamool Congress. The number of man days lost due to strike has come down to zero.

The Trinamool supremo also urged that all the leaders in the district to ensure that all offices were kept open and buses and vehicles ply normally. She urged them to stand by the local people who were in distress. She advised the leaders not to get provoked by the CPI(M) and asked them not to pick up quarrel with the Opposition workers.

Trinamool Congress will take out a rally on Monday from College Square to Esplanade under the leadership of Banerjee. The rally will start at 1 pm. All the party leaders will take part in the rally.