High Court allows Abhishek Banerjee's rally after Tripura police cancelled permission

The High Court of Tripura late Saturday night gave permission to the Trinamool Congress to hold its planned rally for the party's national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee after the local police cancelled its earlier endorsement.

After the police rescinded its permission to hold the rally in front of Rabindra Shatabarshiki Bhawan (Tagore Centenary Hall) here on Sunday and asked for the meeting venue to be shifted, the TMC filed an urgent case before the high court.

Justice Subhashish Talapatra, who heard the case, permitted the TMC to organise its rally after the party gave an undertaking that it would not allow more than 500 people at the venue.

The Trinamool Congress also gave an undertaking before the high court that there would be no gathering at all in other places, a promise they had made earlier in a letter addressed to the local police chief on October 29.

TMC Rajya Sabha MP Sushmita Dev thanked the High court of Tripura for "allowing the party to hold a meeting before the Rabindra Satabarshiki Bhavan on Sunday" with certain conditions due to Covid-19. Banerjee, who will be the main speaker at the rally, promptly retweeted Dev’s social media post.

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“The petitioners have undertaken before this court that the assembly will not be formed of more than 500 people and leaders of the petitioner shall aid the police in order to ensure that not more than 500 people enter the venue... This undertaking shall strictly be observed by the petitioners. The police may put Nakas at the appropriate places to regulate the inflow of the supporters of the petitioner”, the court said in its order.

Banerjee also shared a poster on his Facebook page, which said that "Badla Noy, Badal Chai" (No revenge but want change), and appealed to party workers to attend his meeting.

Amid a spike in coronavirus cases in parts of the country, the BJP-led state government had on Saturday issued fresh guidelines, making Covid-19 tests mandatory for people entering Tripura from several states including West Bengal.

The TMC had promptly reacted to it and called this a political move.

"The BJP is scared of Abhishek. They are using coronavirus as a shield to stop him from addressing the people of Tripura. This shows they know well that the people of Tripura are no longer with the BJP," TMC leader Partha Chatterjee had claimed.

The TMC is trying to gain foothold in the northeastern state ahead of assembly elections in 2023.

The party had on Saturday accused the Biplab Deb government in Tripura of making every effort to stop the party from expanding its base in the northeastern state, dubbing the move to make Covid-19 tests mandatory for certain travellers a tactic to stonewall its campaigns.

Responding to the taunts, BJP national vice-president Dilip Ghosh had claimed that the TMC was trying to "import the politics of violence” in Tripura from Bengal.

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