UPDATE

Rallying for rallies

AT an all-party meeting held on October 29, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front government in West Bengal presented a list of proposals relating to rallies and processions to ensure that they would not inconvenience the city's residents in any way. The proposals include a recommendation that rallies be confined to certain specific spots - three in central Kolkata and one each in the North, the South and the East; processions stick to one flank of the road so that the flow of traffic is not hindered; and larger rallies and processions be restricted to holidays.

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said that political parties and trade unions need to be more disciplined on issues relating to rallies and processions. He stressed that a political consensus was required to implement the proposals successfully. The Trinamul Congress and the Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) did not take part in the meeting. The former, the main Opposition party in the State, boycotted the meeting on the grounds that it had not received a copy of the draft beforehand. The SUCI stayed away because it felt that any restriction on rallies was an infringement on the democratic rights of the people. However, copies of the proposals were sent to both the parties. The Congress(I) and the Bharatiya Janata Party did not raise any major objections to the proposals. A final decision on enforcing these proposals will take place only after all the parties have given their views on it.

The Trinamul Congress has already raised objections to the proposals, with its leader Pankaj Banerjee having reportedly asked: "If the police fire at us in Belghoria (north Kolkata) will it be of any use to protest in Sahid Minar (central Kolkata)?'' The Trinamul has also reserved its right to hold rallies and take out processions in the proposed rally-free areas, depending on the situation. It has refused to respond formally to the draft sent by the government.

At the meeting, the Chief Minister was emphatic about the State's plans for greater industrialisation. He refuted the BJP's contention that rallies were a major deterrent to the inflow of investments into the State, pointing out that West Bengal had an investment turnover of around Rs.2,500 crores last year.

On October 13, a two-member Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court, comprising Justices A.K. Ganguly and S.P. Talukdar, stayed the controversial order of Justice Amitava Lala, which banned all rallies and processions in the city on week days between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. and restricted them on Sundays and public holidays to certain designated places.

Earlier, on October 2, the court had refused the State government's appeal for a stay on Justice Amitava Lala's September 29 order. This did not deter the Left Front from continuing its campaign against what it considered an undemocratic order. On October 8, in a mass convention to `protest' against the order, in which almost all Left Front leaders were present, former Chief Minister Jyoti Basu asked: "How can someone take away our right to protest and at the same time expect people to continue to have respect for the judiciary?''

On October 10, in defiance of the court order, the SUCI took to the road, combining its protest against the banning of rallies with the hike in bus fares. The CPI-ML (Liberation) also took out a rally, disrupting traffic in central Kolkata. The following day, around 1,000 Left Front marchers hit the road in what was called a `Walk for Health', organised by the People's Relief Committee. On October 13, the day the court issued a stay order on the ban, the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) led a rally in which nearly 25,000 student and youth activists participated.

Suhrid Sankar Chattopadhyay

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