Islampur, Jan. 25: The Trinamul Congress formed the students' union in Islampur College today with the help of all SFI winners who switched allegiance to Mamata Banerjee's outfit on a day fraught with clashes between the Congress and police.
Raiganj MP and Mamata bete noire Deepa Das Munshi said the SFI switch has exposed that the CPM was Trinamul's "B-team". The Congress leader had several meetings with the Chhatra Parishad leaders here before the elections to make sure that the union was "captured".
The elections to the 44 seats of the union were held on Saturday. The Chhatra Parishad had won 21, the SFI 17 and the Trinamul Chhatra Parishad six seats.
But Trinamul had the last laugh when the 17 SFI winners arrived at their party office near the old bus stand around noon today wanting to be taken into the fold. Trinamul MLA from Islampur and minister Chowdhury Abdul Karim garlanded them and handed them party flags.
At the same time, the 21 Congress candidates reached the college where principal Utathya Banerjee and two deputy magistrates Subhasis Ghosh and Aswini Roy were present, demanding that they be allowed to form the board as the single largest party.
About 200 policemen were deployed on the campus under additional police superintendent David Lepcha.
The first skirmish took place around 1pm when Trinamul supporters and candidates, including the newly inducted ones, arrived at the college to stake claim to the union.
Chhatra Parishad supporters prevented them from entering the college saying that they had formed an illegal alliance. Congress leaders like municipality chairperson Kanhaialal Agarwal also tried to enter the college demanding that only the Chhatra Parishad should be allowed to form the union. The police lathicharged the Congress supporters and chased them away from the college gates.
But when the election committee announced that anyone was free to submit a panel of names to form the executive committee of the union and all class representatives who had won would vote, the Chhatra Parishad members became agitated. Some of them banged their heads against the walls of the election room and jostled with the police, demanding that the selection be stopped. The Chhatra Parishad demanded that Trinamul and SFI should send separate panel of names.
"I was kicked and boxed, but when the additional police superintendent warned that the agitating students would be arrested for assaulting policemen, they stopped," said inspector in charge of Islampur police station, Samir Pal.
Later, subdivisional officer Partha Ghosh intervened. "This cannot go on, please submit your panels and vote," he appealed to the agitated students.
District president of the Chhatra Parishad Ashanul Haque said the police lathicharge was without provocation. The police have denied the charges. "There was no lathicharge. The police had pushed aside those who had breached Section 144 imposed around 500 metres of the college campus," said additional SP Lepcha.
Around 6pm, the results were declared and the Trinamul panel with third-year student, Tarun Barman as its general secretary won by 23-21 votes.
"The SFI members joined us as they are in favour of improvement of the college. We have gladly inducted them into our fold," Karim said.
The CPM refused to admit that any SFI member had joined Trinamul. The party's state committee member, Subir Biswas, said nothing of the sort had happened. "The SFI has formed the union and the Opposition has supported us. The general secretary is very much a SFI member," Biswas said.
Deepa, however, said what happened today was laughable. "What will chief minister Mamata Banerjee say now? That this is also a small incident like the beating up of the teacher-in-charge of Raiganj College? What I have been saying all these days that the Trinamul and the CPM are hand-in-glove is there for all to see. The CPM is Trinamul's B-team," Deepa said.
Mamata had always said that the Congress was the CPM's "B-team".
The root of the recent campus violence across north Bengal is the turf battle between Trinamul and Congress. On January 5, the principal of Raiganj College was beaten up by alleged Trinamul activists. The Congress led by Deepa in north Bengal is determined to protect its traditional bastion, where Trinamul is steadily making inroads.
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