Kolkata: The show of solidarity by thousands of students on Saturday against the police action in Jadavpur University and Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi’s assurance he would take a call on selecting the university’s vice-chancellor (VC) in a few days has rattled the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal.
To counter this, TMC organised a “counter-rally” on Monday, helmed by academicians and intellectuals considered close to the party.
TMC’s protest rally, which started from the Academy of Fine Arts to Raj Bhavan (Governor’s house) were devoid of any party flags or senior leaders, as ordered by chief minister Mamata Banerjee who had chaired a two-hour meeting at her residence with her party leaders to chalk out the strategy.
Conscious of the fact that a political rally may backfire considering the public mood, the chief minister ensured that a good number of “intellectuals”, “academicians” and even “vice-chancellors (present and former)” led the rally.
A delegation from the rally also met the governor and submitted a memorandum emphasising that “outsiders” were leading to “anarchy” in educational institutions in the state and police were right in taking action against them.
Banerjee herself had described the students’ incident as a “small matter” but, by organising a counter-rally, she has turned the whole incident into “Mamata versus students”.
“We do not understand why TMC had to get involved in all this,” said a TMC member of parliament. “This was an issue between vice-chancellors and students. By getting the party involved she has alienated a large section of the people who are our voters.”
Others draw parallels of the rally that CPI-M, then in power, had organised in the wake of the police shooting incident in Nandigram, to counter the rally that ordinary people had participated in, just like on Saturday.
“Mamata had earned lot of respect as an opposition leader who was always seen with the people. Now in power she is just behaving like any other party,” said academician Chintan Roy.
Banerjee’s nephew and TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee, who is also the chief of the party’s youth wing, in a controversial statement on Monday questioned if the agitations by the students were due to a ban on drugs and liquor inside the campus.
“Liquor, ganja, charas stopped. Is that why the smell of protest?” read a post by Banerjee on social networking site.
Senior professors at the university who sympathised with the students condemned the statement as an attempt to discredit them.
“It is difficult to believe that a parliamentarian can bent so low just for the sake of the party,” said Achinta Biswas former VC of Jadavpur University.
The protest however certainly had the desired effect on the state government as state Higher Education Minister Partha Chatterjee, set up an inquiry committee took look into the incidents of August 28.
“Members of the probe panel would be requested to submit report within 72 hours as desired by the CM,” he said.
