KoPT event turns into TMC bash

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Thursday illustrated that it can hold its own without the Mamata Banerjee-Indian Railways combination at public events.

A clutch of TMC junior ministers and senior leaders today deftly turned a Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) event, marking the commencement of a rejuvenation programme for ghats along the Hooghly river, into a political platform, complete with Left bashing.

As part of a corporate social responsibility initiative, the KoPT intends to upgrade and renovate 12, of the 41 ghats that line Kolkata’s riverfront, at a cost of about Rs 22 lakh.

The event at Nimtola ghat was supposed to be about that. However, with an eye firmly on the approaching municipal elections, the TMC brass ensured quite the opposite.

A massive cut-out of party supremo and Railway minister Mamata Banerjee had been placed opposite the makeshift tent where the event was taking place, while posters lined the streets leading to the venue. But it wasn't the material, but the rhetoric that was unmistakable.

Members of Legislative Assembly from the neighbouring areas, who spoke right after the KoPT acting chairman's short address, launched straight into how local TMC Member of Parliament Sudip Bandyopadhyay had initiated the revival of ghats in North Kolkata.

However, those who followed — including leader of the Opposition Partha Chatterjee and ministers of state Saugata Roy, Sultan Ahmed and Mukul Roy — chose to focus on Banerjee instead.

“This is part of Mamata’s untiring effort to popularise Tagore’s 150th birth celebrations through the Railways,” Chatterjee said, while announcing that Nimtola ghat would be renamed as Rabindra Ghat.

Ahmed, too, believed that the KoPT initiative was a celebration of Mamata’s development drive. But going a step further on the port’s stage, he rallied the TMC cadres ahead of the municipal polls.

“It is the semi-final, and nothing can stop us from winning it,” he declared.

Minister of state for shipping Mukul Roy, under whose ambit KoPT falls, admitted that upgrading ghats wasn’t part of the “core area” for the port authority. “But they have a social responsibility,” he said.

This is despite the fact KoPT has been after the Centre to release funds for undertaking crucial activities.

KoPT acting chairman A Majumdar remained unavailable for comment.