Kolkata, Aug 2 (IANS) Trinamool Congress, on Saturday evening, has announced party parallel programmes at 19 places in Cooch Behar town in Cooch Behar district in North Bengal on August 5, that will coincide with a programme already announced by Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly Suvendu Adhikari in the same town on the same day.

The locations of the 19 parallel programmes have been scheduled in such a manner that the scheduled program of the leader of the opposition will be virtually surrounded by the coinciding programs of the state’s ruling party.

On August 5, Adhikari, along with 65 other party legislators, is scheduled to march through the Cooch Behar town till the office of the Cooch Behar district police superintendent and submit a deputation there on the subsequent events of attacks on elected BJP representatives in the district in the recent past.

However, now with Trinamool Congress announcing 19 parallel programmes in the same city, on the same day and at the same time, chances of political clashes between the two groups could not be ruled out.

Political observers feel that the call for 19 counter programmes at Cooch Behar town on August 5, seemed to be a counter to Adhikari’s counter-rally at Siliguri town in Darjeeling district on the issue of crime against women in the state on the afternoon of July 21 this year, which coincided with Trinamool Congress’ annual Martyrs’ Day rally at central Kolkata on the same day and same time through in different cities.

Then, Trinamool Congress leadership claimed that the leader of the opposition deliberately announced the Siliguri rally on the same day and time as the Martyrs rally to divert media and public attention from the ruling party’s annual programme in Kolkata.

Even while addressing the rally, the West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, also claimed that in the future, Trinamool Congress too will organize parallel programmes at the same time and on the same day as any scheduled political program of the BJP.

Now, Trinamool Congress’s Cooch Behar district leadership has taken the first step to implement the Chief Minister’s caution on this count.

–IANS

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