Now Reading: Congress holds Kolkata march over worker attacks and hawker evictions
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Congress holds Kolkata march over worker attacks and hawker evictions
Congress leaders and workers marched through Kolkata on 5 August in what they called the Lalbazaar Satyagraha, walking from College Street toward the Kolkata Police headquarters. The Hindu reported that hundreds took…
Congress leaders and workers marched through Kolkata on 5 August in what they called the Lalbazaar Satyagraha, walking from College Street toward the Kolkata Police headquarters. The Hindu reported that hundreds took part, including state president Subhankar Sarkar and leader Prakash Joshi, protesting alleged attacks on party workers travelling to a 21 July Martyrs' Day rally, the eviction of hawkers, and police action against students. Sarkar said Congress workers would hold a sit-in wherever police stopped the march rather than clash with them, and accused the state government of letting Bharatiya Janata Party workers act with impunity. Senior leader Suman Roy Chaudhuri said many injured workers had been hospitalised and that police minister Suvendu Adhikari had ordered no impartial inquiry. Police stopped the march with barricades near Bentinck Street, where Congress workers offered flowers and chocolates to the officers. State minister and BJP leader Sharadwat Mukherjee said Congress was trying to remain relevant.
Indian Opinion Analysis
Sarkar and Roy Chaudhuri's version of the 21 July violence comes only from the marchers themselves, naming no attacker and citing no hospital or law-enforcement record beyond what they told reporters at Lalbazaar. Mukherjee's jibe that Congress is chasing relevance answers why the party staged a Satyagraha, not the separate question of who hurt the workers who ended up hospitalised. Worth tracking is whether Suvendu Adhikari, in his capacity as the state's police minister, actually opens the inquiry that Roy Chaudhuri called for into that violence.
Source: The Hindu
This brief was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
