Mamata Banerjee’s rally at Esplanade on Thursday. Picture by Amit Datta

Mamata Banerjee’s Esplanade rally on Thursday drew barely 500 people but the Trinamul flop show left the heart of the city nursing traffic heartburn for four hours.

Police restricted traffic along AJC Bose Road, APC Road and SN Banerjee Road from 2pm in anticipation of a large crowd for the Singur Divas rally that was to begin with a march from Moulali to Esplanade an hour later. But unlike the Martyrs’ Day commemoration on July 21, for which the Trinamul Congress had mobilised over 2 lakh people, Thursday’s rally resembled a street-corner meeting.

“We had expected around 20,000 people but the headcount was not even a fraction of that,” said a senior officer of the traffic department.

Traffic management plans went haywire even before the rally began, with the Trinamul Congress leadership deciding to reach Esplanade through Lenin Sarani instead of SN Banerjee Road. Puja shoppers, schoolchildren and office-goers returning home were the hardest hit. “I got off a taxi near Park Street after a 30-minute wait and started walking. As I passed the dais from where Mamata was addressing the crowd, I noticed there were hardly 300 people listening to her. But thousands of people in the city centre had to suffer,” said Subhasish Roy, an employee of a private company.

Trinamul Congress president Subrata Bakshi blamed the poor turnout on the rain. “In any case, we hadn’t campaigned for the rally across the state as we took the decision (to hold it) only a week ago. That was after the government refused to go by the Singur pact it had signed in front of the governor.”

Bakshi said it would be unfair to compare the July 21 rally with the one on Thursday.

As Mamata fired one salvo after another at the government in front of her sparse audience at Esplanade, the only casualty was weekday traffic. “We stopped traffic movement along SN Banerjee Road but Lenin Sarani was open. By the time we closed Lenin Sarani, traffic movement along APC Road had come to a standstill,” said an officer of the Sealdah traffic guard.

Traffic had to be diverted on either flank of central Calcutta — from Maniktala in the north to Park Circus in the south — because of the rally. “Buses headed to Sealdah from the Exide intersection had to be routed through Circus Avenue, while those headed south from Maniktala were diverted through Vivekananda Road, Amherst Street, BB Ganguly Street and then Dalhousie,” said K. Hari Rajan, the additional commissioner of police.

Calcutta University student Krishna Basu, on her way to New Market, was stranded near Moulali. “I have shelved my Puja shopping plan for the day. I can’t wait any longer. I am heading back home,” she said.

But even returning home was not easy. Ananya Chatterjee, driving back to her Beleghata Main Road residence after fetching her son from school, was stuck for 45 minutes at the AJC Bose Road-Moulali crossing.

“This is nothing but a tamasha. Such things should not be allowed in a civilised society,” she said.

Friday will probably not be any different for commuters as six organisations intend to hit central Calcutta between noon and 3pm for various reasons. Noor Abbas, who was stuck for around an hour near Esplanade on Thursday evening, would do well to leave his office earlier than normal on Friday to reach home in time to break his Ramzan fast.