Intense heat is affecting daily life in Kolkata, but politics on the streets seems to be steady, with the Congress, the BJP and the Left hitting the roads.
On Tuesday, Tejaswi Surya, BJP’s Karnataka South MP and national president of BJP Yuva Morcha led a protest on the eastern fringes of Kolkata, against alleged arbitrary appointments in state government jobs. While the protest began late in the afternoon, there was still heat. Water cannons left many supporters wet. A few supporters were injured as they jostled.
“It’s a 100 per cent politicised state… The political temperature is much higher than that of the weather. Every day there is an incident, and people are raising their voice for democratic rights,” Shamik Bhattacharya, the party’s chief spokesperson, told Deccan Herald.
Just like the BJP, the Congress Party also called for a protest on Tuesday to raise concerns about the arrest of its Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani by the Assam police. Ritzu Ghosal, state general secretary of the party, and a lawyer defended the call for protests in the hot weather. “People are also going out for work. We as lawyers wear three layers of cloth. As far as the protests are concerned, incidents have not stopped. So, as it’s our political responsibility to express concern,” he said.
The Left, too, hasn’t stopped. On Wednesday, CPI(M)’s student and youth wings - SFI, DYFI - called for a procession with justice in the student leader Anis Khan’s mysterious death, as one of the concerns. “The government is not stopping from doing what they have been doing. We had to come out on the street,” Srijan Bhattacharyya, state secretary, SFI, said.
Meanwhile, concerned about the heatwave that's likely to continue over the next few days, the West Bengal government has decided to prepone summer vacation for the schools. The vacation is to begin on May 2.
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