West Bengal suffers its third bandh in ’04

It was the third bandh of the year and the industry captains in Kolkata are angry. At this rate, the city’s bid for an image makeover will suffer seriously, they rued. ‘‘At a time when the state is trying to attract foreign investments, these bandhs play spoilsport,’’ said Ravi Poddar, deputy chairman of CII, eastern region. Najib Arif, secretary general of the Indian Chamber of Commerce expressed anguish: “Roughly, the state loses around Rs 600 crore to a bandh.” The bandh was called by the Trinamool Congress against a proposed legislation by the Left Front government to help set up village-level conciliation boards for litigants to settle disputes. Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee, however, was happy the bandh was successful in paralysing life in the state for over 12 hours, and said it was the ultimate mode of protest.