The Hindu Business Line : Bengal Assembly spectacle draws long queues

THE WEST BENGAL Assembly was thrown open to the public on Friday to view the wreckage due to the violence in the House on Thursday. — A. Roy Chowdhury

Kolkata , Dec. 1

The serpentine queue was about one-and-a-half kilometres long. The crowd, comprising the old and the young, inched its way forward with the help of numerous cups of lemon tea, biscuits and even the morning's newspapers, which detailed the mayhem and destruction wrought by a bunch of politicians in the West Bengal State Assembly on Thursday.

The people were patient enough to wait for a couple of hours — that too on a bandh day — to see the damage done to the State Assembly. This, observers say, is a spectacle that is novel even to a bandh-ridden State such as West Bengal.

Yesterday, Trinamool Congress MLAs damaged property, shredded business papers and official documents, overturned and broke furniture, yanked microphones off their holders and vandalised the Assembly chamber and the hall outside it. They were angered over the experience of their party leader Ms Mamata Banerjee, who was disallowed by the police to proceed to Singur, where she intended to take part in a protest march against the acquisition of farmland for the Tata small car project. The police had cordoned off the area following imposition of Section 144 CrPC.

Viewing till Sunday

The State Government has decided to throw open the assembly to the public between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. from Friday through Sunday so that people can see for themselves the damage done inside the Assembly chamber.

Among the visitors were State Government employees who had sneaked out of their offices and several women and members of NGOs who had under taken a World AIDS Day march that had ended at the Netaji Indoor Stadium across the road.

Said a cricket enthusiast: "In the last 30 years, I have never seen a queue this long even outside Eden Gardens when there is a test match or ODI featuring India". A housewife who could not make it today is determined to visit the Assembly tomorrow to see the "spectacle of a lifetime".

However, some people Business Line spoke to lamented that so many people were prepared to spend time on something the State should be ashamed of. But there were others who were happy to be in the area on the day, namely, hawkers who had earlier thought that the bandh would take the usual toll of their daily earnings.

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