Petrol and diesel are two distinct fuels, albeit of the same origin. But the consecutive bandhs called on Thursday and Friday by ruler and opposition against the price hike blurred the distinction between the CPI(M) and the opposition Trinamool Congress (TC) like no other issue has in the past.
If CPI(M) state secretary Biman Bose failed to clarify his party?s position regarding Friday?s bandh called by the Trinamool, Mamata Banerjee had no answer when asked, why a separate bandh.
With the skies opening up before dawn Thursday, Kolkata?s streets were bereft of supporters and opponents, and suffering citizens were asking: If the CPI(M) called a bandh against the hike on Thursday, why isn?t it supporting the Trinamool Congress bandh set for Friday called on the same issue?
Hold it! How can the ruling party support the opposition party? But then, why isn?t the CPI(M) opposing the bandh? (Unlike in every opposition bandh, the government will not ply its buses on the Trinamool bandh day this time.)
Mamata on Thursday realised that she had annoyed the people by calling a separate bandh on the same demand. Her excuse: the CPI(M) had no moral right to call a bandh against the oil price hike, because it is party to the Congress-led UPA government?s decision.
Mamata, asking the people to ??forgive?? her, said: ??I was compelled to call the bandh. I had to expose CPI(M)?s dichotomy.??
The CPI(M), trying to avoid public blame for two wasted days, claimed the ??first-past-the-post?? right. It said it had called its bandh after waiting 40 minutes from the time the UPA government announced its decision in Delhi.
Apparently, in that interminably long span of 40 minutes, no other party decided to call a bandh.
??We were the first to call a bandh,?? said CPI(M) state secretary Biman Bose. ??The main opposition could have easily supported our bandh, had it wished to do so.??
The Congress, against whose government at the Centre the bandhs have been called, enjoyed the discomfiture of the CPI(M) and the Trinamool.