Several Trinamool Congress (TMC)-backed hawkers around New Market and the heritage Grand Hotel in Kolkata were asked to clear illegal pavement encroachments by a local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) trade union leader.
“Kali Khatik, who runs the BJP union, told the hawkers to leave. On Monday night, Khatik’s men also demolished a small TMC office and a shop using an earth mover,” an officer from the local New Market police station said.
Khatik said that he has asked the hawkers to leave. “This has nothing to do with Hindus and Muslims. The TMC union tormented our members for years. We will allow only our members to do business,” Khatik said.
Most of those who left, allegedly under pressure, belong to the Muslim community and owe allegiance to the TMC trade union. TMC’s Debasish Kumar, who heads the union, lost his Rashbehari assembly seat to BJP’s Swapan Dasgupta.
Sheikh Rafique, who belongs to the BJP union, said, “I am doing business as usual, but all those who were with TMC have left.”
Grand Hotel and New Market are located very close to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) headquarters.
Illegal encroachments on pavements, especially near the heritage Grand Hotel arcade, have been an issue in the city, with owners of showrooms and licensed shops moving court several times in the past 15 years.
In one such case, the Calcutta high court directed the KMC in 2023 to explain why unauthorised hawkers had not been removed despite earlier court orders. The hawkers cleared the streets for a few weeks after this order but later returned.
The TMC condemned the New Market incident in a statement.
“BJP’s ‘Poriborton’ (change) has arrived, and it has arrived with a bulldozer. In an act of brazen hooliganism and gundagardi, mobs of BJP supporters went on a rampage near the New Market area, destroying shops and vandalising the Trinamool Congress party office. This is the celebration of a party that spoke of trust and delivered terror,” the TMC said.
“Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have handed their karyakartas a licence to let loose on the streets, to mow down whatever stands in their path, to attack, brutalise and kill whosoever they please. And the Central Forces have been given one instruction: to stand down and let it happen. Today it is shops. Tomorrow it will be political opponents…” it added.
BJP state president Samik Bhattacharya said no act of violence by his party workers will be tolerated.
“All party workers and leaders, no matter how senior, will be arrested if they indulge in any act of violence. We will not allow BJP to turn into another TMC. I met the director general of the state police and the Kolkata Police commissioner on Wednesday morning. I told them to take action against everybody irrespective of their political identity,” Bhattacharya said.
