More confident than ever before with a resounding victory in the recently concluded general elections Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday directed her administration to ensure that no public or government property was painted in red or saffron colours and that only the “sky-blue colour which has been used at Nabanna (State secretariat) is used.” Even the tin or other materials used to cover the roof of such structures will have to be removed and replaced by what she called the “sky-blue that is the State colour.”
Banerjee’s directions came during a meeting and amid State Government’s ongoing bull-dozerdrive across the urban areas of the State where unauthorized structures had come up on government properties.
The police and civic administrations have been pulling down thousands of “unauthorized” shop and other structures including party offices built on government land or sidewalks leading to commotions and protests in many areas by the opposition outfits.
While the police started using pay-loaders to demolish illegal structures hours after the Chief Minister on Tuesday pulled up the police administration and a host of ministers and TMC legislators in a televised meeting for allowing such encroachments Banerjee on Thursday said she was not in favour of using bulldozers.
“I am not in favour of using bulldozers but why such unauthorized encroachment should be allowed to continue at the cost of public safety and convenience,” Banerjee said adding and roundly conceding that “in most of the cases some people in police administration are allowing these outsiders to settle illegally on the pavements.’
While the police action continued in large parts of Kolkata, Howrah, Salt Lake, Asansol, Durgapur, Siuri, and even Siliguri and Dhupguri in North Bengal, the Opposition BJP and the Left immediately explained the sudden spurt in the Chief Minister’s “overflowing love for the urban civilians” in terms of a considerable dip in her urban support base apparently in the wake of large scale scam and corruption charges against her government that has seen a galaxy of her ministers and legislators going to jail.
“She is unleashing bulldozers on the poor people of the urban area because they have voted against her … this is a warning and a revenge on the poor,” BJP MLA Shikha Chattopadhyay said wondering why the bigger hotels that had come up on public lands were left untouched or for that matter why the bulldozers were not being sent to minority areas where illegal power theft and encroachment was much more evident than in any other areas.
Out of 121 municipalities in the State the TMC is trailing in 67 places whereas out of 144 wards in Kolkata Municipal Corporation Mamata Banerjee’s party is behind the BJP in about 45 wards.
Meanwhile, following large-scale protests halted the bulldozer campaign for one month directing the administration to fund out alternative ways to resettle the encroachers in areas so that their livelihood was not hurt. “I am giving the one month’s time to come to a solution and sort out ways so that sidewalks are cleared for the people and roads are rendered clean,” she said. On the use of colours the Chief
Minister said that “in no case red or saffron colour will be used … I am not concerned what they use in private buildings but insofar as the State colour is sky-blue like the one we have atNabanna it has to be seen that only the State colour is used.”
Referring to a recent visit to the northern part of the State she said, “recently I saw how they areusing red and saffron colour in North Bengal and how they are painting everything in saffron in the Metro Railway … why should they use the colour of any political party to paint government buildings … Do I use my party colours for the government buildings in Bengal … I will not tolerate this.”
