Abhishek on dharna at Raj Bhavan: ‘Will stay put till Governor meets us’

The Trinamool Congress on Thursday held a protest march and staged a dharna outside Raj Bhavan in Kolkata over the alleged withholding of funds by Central government and said it will continue the demonstration till West Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose meets party delegation.

Slamming the Centre’s alleged “step-motherly attitude” towards the state, party general secretary and MP Abhishek Banerjee, who led the march, said, “We will not lift the dharna till the Governor meets us as he is the representative of the Centre in the state. Yesterday, we sent a mail to Raj Bhavan that we wanted to meet the Governor. We received a reply that he was in Siliguri and we could come there to meet him. We could have gone there to meet him but we came to know that he will be there only till 4 pm. This is zamindari culture.”

The protest march, which was attended by party MPs, MLAs and other senior leaders, started from Rabindra Sadan around 2 pm.

The ruling party workers raised slogans against the BJP.

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Also, party leaders and supporters condemned , “a downward slide of democracy in the country by the BJP’s style of governance”.

Abhishek Banerjee said the demonstration will continue from 11 am to 9 pm every day with a halt at night. He will be present at the protest site even during the night but there would be no sloganeering and the usage of loudspeakers during the 14-hour period from 9 pm, the Diamond Harbour MP added.