Salt Lake, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s showcase, on Thursday witnessed the CPM-backed Citu flexing its muscles.

Its cadre smashed a few score autorickshaws and threatened their drivers with yanking the vehicles off the route. Their fault: refusal to pay the daily subscription to the union.

Tension building up over the past few days snowballed into a clash on Thursday morning. “A group, known as Citu cadre, told us not to ply our autos on the route from Karunamoyee. They said only Citu members were allowed on the route,” complained Uttam Saha, an auto driver who was attacked.

Sources said more than 60 autos were taken off various routes because of the violence. A complaint was lodged at Bidhannagar (North) police station. However, police preferred to avoid a confrontation with the Citu. “Nothing much occurred. We are probing the incident,” said a police station official.

Citu leaders were tightlipped. “I don’t know what happened and so can’t comment,” said Amitabha Nandi, CPM state committee member and candidate for the Dum Dum Lok Sabha seat.

Opposition councillors of Salt Lake municipality demanded intervention by officials against the attack on non-Citu auto drivers. “Those with valid route permits must be allowed to carry passengers, irrespective of political affiliation. The Citu musclemen harass all auto drivers across the township who are not their supporters,” alleged Sabyasachi Dutta, Trinamul Congress councillor of ward 10.

Autos found entry into Salt Lake a decade ago. Since then, the number of these three-wheelers has grown by leaps and bounds. The reason is the mushrooming of middlemen and the number of private financial agencies. Presently, there are around 400 autos, about 50 per cent of which, municipal officials reveal, run without a valid licence.

“A large number of autos in the township do not have permits and run illegally,” Dilip Gupta, chairman of Salt Lake municipality, said on Thursday.

But a section of civic officials said pressure from the powerful Citu lobby has been a major block in regularising the three-wheelers. “Most autos neither have a permit nor any definite route. But whenever we have tried to take steps to regularise things, the unions have opposed us,” a municipality official said.

Each entrant needs to pay anything between Rs 2,000 and Rs 5,000 to the union before he can ply his vehicle anywhere in the township. In addition, the autos have to pay a daily subscription of Rs 3 to Rs 5.

The municipality recently planned to licence only 2,000 cycle-rickshaws of the fleet that plies in the township. The plan fell flat, as both Citu and Intuc leaders opposed the move.