September 2 trade union bandh: CITU warns Mamata Banerjee against attempts to ‘foil’ plans

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“Since 1991, this is the 16th strike in the interest of the common people and neither the UPA nor the NDA government had opposed these earlier. If the CM intends to impede the bandh, we will understand that there has been a settlement between the state and the Centre. We warn Mamata that by doing so she would be playing with fire and that can burn her hands,” Chakrabarty said.

Asked about their plan of action if opposed, the CITU leader said, “Our volunteers would be on the road. Whether the bandh would be peaceful or not would depend on how the government behaved. If the chief minister along with her thugs and police try to forcibly foil the strike then we will retaliate.”

Meanwhile, senior TMC leader and state Panchayat minister Subrata Mukherjee said the state government will ensure that peace is maintained on the bandh day.
“We are against bandh. … The administration will work to maintain peace in the state. If someone wants to go to office and faces trouble, the administration will help them,” Mukherjee told reporters.

In reference to CPM state secretary Surya Kanta Mishra’s remark that Wednesday’s bandh would “create a new history”, Mukherjee said, “They have already created history by goondaism during their 34-year-rule in the state. Now they are again trying to take up goondaism to create another history but that will not help them in any way.”

“I think if they continue to resort to hooliganism, this party (CPM) will cease to exist and only few people will remain there,” the TMC leader added.
Mukherjee said through the bandh, the Left parties were “actually trying to derail CM Mamata’s development works”.
Left Front chairperson Biman Basu also warned the government “not to play with fire”. “State government, don’t play with fire… The policy of oppressing people will not succeed,” Bose said.

He added that the strike was in the interest of 45 crore labourers of the unorganised sector and every possible attempt would be made to make it successful. “After a meeting with the 17 Left Front parties it had been decided that we will put up streetside meetings, and campaign before the September 2 strike,” he said.
Earlier, 11 central trade unions had called for a nation-wide strike to protest against the proposed labour reforms by central and state governments.

However, RSS-affiliated trade union, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), pulled out after two rounds of discussion between group of ministers (GoM) headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and the central trade unions on August 26 and 27, when Jaitley sent an appeal to reconsider the bandh call.

“The government had not given any consideration to our 12-point demand and the BMS leaders thought that we should give them some more time. We would, however, go ahead with the bandh as proposed and would urge BMS workers too to support it,” Chakraborty said.

Congress-affiliated labour union INTUC, too, had lend its support to the bandh.

“We had met the party supremo Sonia Gandhi who asked us to support the bandh that has been called for the cause of labourers,” said Ramen Pandey, INTUC president.

When asked, Bose said, “The Congress had always been a bunch of rightists but I am sure it feels that the present central government is more rightist than them, hence it has lend their support to the strike.”