Babu seizes cassette TT, Oct. 1: A member of a central team visiting the hills seized the cassette of a local television journalist who was filming an informal meeting between the officials and Gorkha Janmukti Morcha leaders. The incident occurred at a riverside hamlet in Relli, 6km from here, when the leader of the team and joint secretary in the home ministry, N.S. Kalsi, asked the reporter, Raju Bhandari, to stop filming the meeting with the Morcha’s Kalimpong unit leaders at the DGHC-run Coffee House. “Kalsi sent an official who asked me to hand over the cassette to him. I thought he would give me back the cassette, but that did not happen. I approached a few Morcha leaders for help, but they could not do anything,” said Bhandari. Cong sups with Left to teach Mamata a lesson

BARUN GHOSH AND OUR BUREAU

TT, Oct. 1: The Congress today stunned the Trinamul Congress by snatching the reins of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation with the help of the Left, finally sending a stern message to Mamata Banerjee that the party would no longer blindly accept terms set by her. Both the posts of mayor and chairperson in the civic body were bagged today by the Congress which had fought the popular election in alliance with Trinamul and ended the 28-year reign of the Left in its north Bengal redoubt. Gangotri Dutta and Sabita Devi Agarwal of the Congress were elected mayor and chairperson, respectively, after the party’s district president wrote a letter to local Left boss and minister Asok Bhattacharya. In the 47-councillor corporation, the Congress and Trinamul were tied with 15 each. However, once the Left tilted the balance, the Congress’s mayor candidate got 32 votes against Trinamul’s 15 and the chairperson nominee bagged 32 against none for the rival as the rest had walked out. The Congress’s assertive streak represented a turnaround from the way it had been meekly surrendering to Trinamul since the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections. It was left to the Congress MP from Raiganj, Deepa Das Munshi, to call Mamata’s bluff. That there is no love lost between the two women is no secret. For Deepa, the battle for Siliguri had both a local and a larger dimension. North Bengal is the Congress’s last fort in Bengal; Mamata has already taken over the Opposition space in the rest of the state. Conceding Siliguri to Trinamul would have meant allowing Mamata to threaten Deepa’s and the Congress’s own backyard. Unlike in the general election and in the bypolls to Sealdah and Bowbazar Assembly seats, Deepa could persuade the party high command that she be allowed to enforce her writ against Mamata. Since the municipal poll results were announced on September 15, Deepa has been in constant touch with senior party leaders. “I have been regularly giving an update to both Pranabda (Mukherjee, Bengal Congress president) and Raoji (K. Keshava Rao, AICC general secretary in charge of Bengal) for over a fortnight. Even this morning, I informed them… about the Left backing. They okayed my initiative,” she said. Going by Deepa’s statements, it appears that though the high command publicly maintained that it had left the Siliguri battle to “local leaders”, it stood by her to keep Trinamul at bay. The Congress’s defiance of Mamata in Siliguri may not necessarily be the beginning of the end of the Bengal alliance. The Congress central leadership today insisted the alliance was “intact”, suggesting it just wanted to show it could take a few risks in the battle of nerves with the mercurial ally. It is unlikely the Congress-Left understanding in Siliguri will be repeated in next year’s civic elections or in the 2011 Assembly polls. But the Congress’s new-found boldness, especially its decision to take the Left’s help, has the potential to add new dimensions to Bengal’s politics. The Siliguri move has served two purposes for the party. First, it has signalled the Congress’s defiance of Mamata, preparing it for tougher bargains with Trinamul in next year’s polls to 82 civic bodies, including the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, and the Assembly elections in 2011. Second, it has opened up possibilities of a Congress-Left rapprochement at a strategic level. In that sense, Siliguri has witnessed a reversal of Prakash Karat’s policy of a complete breakdown in Congress-communist understanding. All 17 Left Front councillors could not have voted for the Congress without state CPM leaders’ approval. A state CPM leader today said the party “distinguishes between the Congress and Trinamul”. Making or breaking alliances is not new at the municipal or panchayat levels. Parties frequently take the help of their rivals to form boards at the lower level. But the Siliguri episode is the first big jolt to the Congress-Trinamul alliance. By accepting the Left’s help, the Congress has also taken a gamble. Mamata has accused the Congress of getting into “an unholy nexus” with the CPM for usurping power in Siliguri. She alleged that the Congress had “betrayed” the people of Siliguri. A Congress leader said: “Mamata will definitely look for an opportunity to humiliate us in the near future.” Crack in alliance sparks mob fury Supporters ransack reception venue & abuse Deepa Supporters encircle Das Munshi’s vehicle at Hashmi Chowk and (below) police stand guard on the Siliguri Municipal Corporation premises on Thursday. Pictures by Kundan Yolmo BIRESWAR BANERJEE, TT, Siliguri, Oct. 1: Supporters of the Trinamul Congress and the Congress ransacked the venue of a civic reception and abused Raiganj MP Deepa Das Munshi soon after results for the posts of mayor and chairperson of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation were announced this afternoon. The SMC had arranged for the civic reception at Rabindra Mancha in Baghajatin Park for the mayor, chairperson and the newly elected councillors after the oath-taking ceremony. Paritosh Roy, the civic commissioner, had sent invitations for the programme. But around 12.40pm, when the news of the Congress bagging both the key civic posts with Left support spread, about 100 supporters of the Congress and Trinamul along with some residents, who were waiting impatiently at the SMC gate, ran to the park in a fit of fury, abusing their leaders. The crowd at the park, about 300m from the corporation, waiting for the celebrations joined them and immediately started hurling the plastic chairs brought for the programme. The decorated reception venue soon turned into a mess as irate supporters threw and broke the tables, chairs, fans and tore down the festoons. “We are loyal to Sonia Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee. But we don’t want to see Gautam Deb or Shankar Malakar (the Darjeeling district presidents of Trinamul and the Congress) as leaders any more,” shouted Asit Ghosh, a Trinamul supporter, as he kicked and hurled chairs. “We contested the civic polls as an ally and the people voted in our favour. These leaders disrespect the verdict for their own interests and are responsible for today’s situation. The leaders who went for the bargaining and did not budge from their stance for vested interests should be thrown out of the party,” Ghosh said. Bhola Saha, a Collegepara resident who claimed to be a “common man” but favoured a change of guards at the SMC, spoke on the same lines. “People had trusted the alliance and exercised their franchise to ensure that it came to power to oust the Left. But all our efforts went in vain,” he said. As the rampage continued for around 30 minutes, more policemen — only 15-20 personnel were present at the park — brought the situation under control. Gaurav Sharma, the additional superintendent of police of Siliguri, and Prasanta Chanda and Sitaram Sinha, the two deputy superintendents, visited the SMC to prevent any untoward incident. The SMC commissioner said the civic reception was postponed for the day. “It will be held later in consultation with the mayor.” Later, at Hashmi Chowk around 2.15pm, more than 200 people assembled near the district Congress office, sloganeering against Das Munshi. The Raiganj MP had been actively involved in the civic election from the beginning. As Das Munshi boarded a vehicle to leave the premises, the mob encircled her car on Hill Cart Road and started abusing her, holding her responsible for the present situation. The irate supporters thumped on the bonnet and windows of the vehicle, asking her to “return to Raiganj and not to get involved in Siliguri issues”. About 10 minutes later, the police managed to escort her vehicle out. The situation was so tensed near the SMC that all Congress councillors, including the newly elected mayor and the chairperson, left the premises in a convoy of six vehicles with police escorts to reach the party office, hardly a kilometre away. In the afternoon, Congress supporters demonstrated in front of Malakar’s house at Babupara for about 45 minutes. The police persuaded the mob to disperse. Trinamul also took out processions in town, blaming its ally for joining hands with the Left. Trinamul on rampage after losing SMC poll SNS, SILIGURI, 1 OCT: Violation and vandalism marked the day after the Congress nominated candidate won the SMC mayor post with support from the Left Front candidates. Trinamul supporters went on the rampage after the Trinamul councillors, losing the mayor post to the Congress walked out of the SMC meeting hall. A section of Trinamul supporters vandalised the venue at the Baghajatin Park for the felicitation of all elected councillors. Meanwhile, Trinamul and a section of Congress supporters detained the Congress Raiganj MP Mrs Deepa Das Munshi in her vehicle while she was leaving the party office. After the election result to the Mayor post was declared, the Trinamool councillors walked out of the SMC building and rallied to the party office. In the meantime, angry and disappointed Trinamul supporters vandalized the stage set up to felicitate the councillors. Although the Trinamul leadership tried to prevent the supporters, they damaged hundreds of chairs, fans at the Baghajatin Park. The Trinamul supporters also shouted slogan against the Congress councillors leaving the SMC office. Disappointed with the Congress leadership's decision to take support from the Left Front, a section of Congress workers assembled in front of the party district committee office and expressed dissatisfaction with the development. “Taking support from the CPI-M amounts to cheating the people. We appealed to vote for the alliance to oust the Left Front from the SMC, but now we accepted their support,” said a Congress worker Mr Tapan Saha. Some Congress supporters also condemned the leadership for the act. “Being a local party worker, I have to answer to the people. And, I do not know what to say,” said another Congress supporter Mr Vinod Chowtala. “We worked day and night for the Congress-Trinamul alliance, all our effort went in vein. Now it would be very embarrassing for us,” he added. The police are yet to start a case against the vandalism. “No complaint has yet been registered in this connection,” said the Darjeeling SP Mr DP Singh. Nantu Paul likely to become Siliguri deputy mayor SNS, SILIGURI, 1 OCT: Mr Nantu Paul, Congress councillor in the Siliguri Municipal Corporation elected from Ward number 11 is likely to be the new deputy mayor of the civic body. Mr Paul, who was reportedly unhappy after the Congress leadership denied him the Mayor post, did not accompany the Congress councillors to the SMC office to file nominations for the Mayor and chairperson posts today. The Congress leadership, however, persuaded him to accept the deputy mayor post last night. “The Congress-led Siliguri Municipal Corporation board would work for more development in the region and deliver better services to its residents,” said the newly elected SMC Mayor Miss Gangotri Datta. “I would try, in consultation with all elected councillors, to deliver better services and proper development,” Miss Datta, said sitting beside her possible deputy Mr Nantu Paul in the Mayor's office today. The new Mayor would give priority to make the process of issuing trade license and building license “quick and uncomplicated.” “I would take initiative for equal development in the 14 added wards of the SMC and try to bring down the pollution level,” said Miss Datta. The new board would give more priority to the underdeveloped and slum dwellers, she said. Being the first woman to assume the office of SMC Mayor, Miss Datta, a lawyer, said: “I would give priority for the development of women. The new SMC board would also fetch more funds from the Centre,” she added. The newly elected SMC chairperson, Mrs Sabita Agarwal said: “We would try to fulfill the people's expectations.” ;Suman Sahoo Work begins again in Chamurchi tea garden Tea leaves being loaded on trucks in the Chamurchi garden on Thursday. Picture by Anirban Choudhury TT, Alipurduar, Oct. 1: Chamurchi Tea Estate reopened today with the new management vowing to turn around the garden in five years. Chamurchi Agro India Private Limited, which took over the garden that had been closed for seven years, arranged for a low-key programme to mark the opening. A puja was performed in a Shiv temple in the garden and sweets were distributed among workers. On the first day, about 700 labourers plucked tea leaves till 1pm. The tea leaves were then weighed and loaded on trucks which took the produce to factories in other gardens. After declaring the estate “opened”, R.P. Tiwari, the new executive director of Chamurchi Agro India Private Limited, said: “I know how to revive a sick industry as I had turned around three jute mills earlier. In the first five years, the company will invest money in the garden. We will focus on nourishing the bushes to improve the quality of the produce. We hope that the garden will make profit from the sixth year.” The estate is located at Banarhat, around 90km from here, in Jalpaiguri district. “If we can run the estate smoothly for at least one year, then the workers will have faith in us. There will be celebrations to mark the first anniversary of the re-opening,” said Tiwari. The official said all repairs in the garden factory would be finished by March 2010. “The garden is expected to get power connection soon and efforts are being made to solve water crisis the labourers are facing,” he added. Tiwari said the dues of the workers till March 31, 2001 would be paid in three installments. “The first instalment was paid on September 15 after the decision to reopen the estate was taken at a meeting on September 8. The rest of the dues will be cleared before August next year. Besides, each labourer will get Rs 1,000 every month for one year under FAWLOI (financial assistance to workers of locked out industries).” The garden, which is spread over 482 hectares, has tea plants only in 15 per cent of the area. The management has earmarked 200 more hectares for cultivation. Ratan Ram Ravi Das, the secretary of the operating and maintenance committee of the garden, offered co-operation on the part of the workers. “We are very happy today and we will extend all kinds of co-operation to the new management. Only time will tell whether the new company will be able to run the estate successfully. At least one year is needed to make any comment on the new management. ” Nur Maya Chhetry, a worker, was guarded in her reaction. “We have faced a lot of problems in the garden. Many people have died because of mal-nutrition and lack of health care facilities. While many children had to discontinue their education, a good number of boys and girls have gone to other states in search of jobs. We do not want a repetition of those bad days.”