HC ‘drive’ gets road rage for CPM

While Minister for Transport Subhas Chakrabarty as well as Home Secretary Ardhendu Sen have said that the state government will abide by an order barring vehicles older than 15 years from plying the roads, it is not winning them any fans. Besides, there is much scepticism about how 2,557 buses, 5,000 taxis and 573 minibuses can be shunted off the roads, as owners of most of the vehicles owe allegiance to CITU, the labour wing of the CPM. Signs of resistance are clear. On Monday, CITU staged a road blockade at Nagerbazar near Dum Dum airport during morning peak hours, throwing traffic in the northern fringe of the city out of gear. People are also wondering about the fate of the city's transportation system.

Covering lost ground, district by district

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is on a roll. Ever since he started touring the districts on weekends from June 27 to put his finger on their socioeconomic and law-and-order pulse, there seems to be no stopping him. Thus while on June 27 he visited Nadia, the next day saw him at Hooghly. Last Sunday, he visited Murshidabad, while Bankura is on the itinerary for July 14. At this rate, he may soon finish the rounds of all 17 districts. However, the Trinamool Congress has been boycotting all the meetings held along the way, alleging that Bhattacharjee’s aim is merely to regain lost ground after the Marxists’ poll debacle in both the Lok Sabha as well as the municipal elections in the state.

Buddha’s AMU campaign succeeds

The Chief Minister lobbied tenaciously with the Central government for an Aligarh Muslim University campus in Murshidabad, so it was a time for celebration when Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee allocated Rs 25 crore for the same. Just a week ago, Buddha wrote to Mukherjee urging him to allocate funds and arrange for land for the campus from the project area of Farakka barrage. This was followed up with another reminder a few days later. Detractors, however, interpret the CM’s enthusiasm as a desperate attempt to make a dent in the Muslim vote-bank in Murshidabad, which, at 70 per cent, has one of the highest Muslim populations in the country.

Now, Assembly polls on Mamata’s agenda

Come August and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee will plunge into campaigning for the Assembly polls of 2011, when she will embark on a tour of the state’s districts telling people what she had done for the people of West Bengal through her Railway Budget. The first major rally will be at Dharmatala on July 21, which is observed as ‘martyr’s day’ by the Trinamool Congress in memory of the death of 13 Congress workers in police firing on that day in 1993. At the rally, Mamata will make a series of announcements on agitation programmes to be taken up by the party. It is believed that Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is likely to join the rally.