Rally yesterday, rally today, rally tomorrow and rally the day after.

Metro Channel is a nice place to be in on a December afternoon for our political parties. Not any longer for the Calcuttan wanting to spend a winter afternoon at the city centre shopping or just soaking in the festive feel.

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee will address schoolteachers on Wednesday to congratulate them for defeating their Trinamul Congress rivals in district council elections. Mamata Banerjee will address her youth brigade on Thursday.

The casualty: the shopper headed for New Market, redolent with the smell of cakes and the glitter of Christmas trees at this time of the year.

“Rallies should be banned during this season and more cops deployed to ease the chaotic traffic in and around New Market,” said Valentina, 17.

The girl from Mizoram was with three friends at New Market on Tuesday, bustling with Christmas shoppers. Around 100 metres away, a rally by the SUCI-supported motor van drivers’ union had choked Metro Channel.

The resultant snarls on the arterial roads stretched far and long, beyond the Park Street flyover in the south and Ganesh Chandra Avenue in the north.

The first day of the week had been no different with Trinamul supporters parading through the city with the body of a Lalgarh victim and Left Front-affiliated BSNL workers stalling traffic on Rani Rashmoni Avenue.

“Earlier, parties would spare us such disruptive programmes during the festival season. They have now lost all sense of propriety,” said a New Market shop owner, bracing for more disruption on Wednesday and Thursday.

The police are more worried about Wednesday with the red army planning to hit the streets at two places. “Senior leaders, including the chief minister and the Left Front chairman (Biman Bose) will address the rally at Metro Channel,” said a traffic police officer. “We may need to close Metro Channel completely from 12.30pm.”

While the rally opposite Metro cinema will “celebrate” the victory of CPM candidates in the district primary teachers’ council elections, activists of the DYFI — the youth wing of the CPM — will march from Joka to Metro Bhavan near the Park Street junction.

The rally is scheduled to reach Metro Bhavan at 3pm. “If there are two huge rallies within a distance of 2km, traffic is bound to be affected,” said the police officer.

The rally roster till New Year’s Eve also includes a meeting of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, which has almost no presence in the city. But don’t be surprised if hundreds turn up for the December 29 rally on Rani Rashmoni Avenue, spoiling your day.

“Some people love attending rallies, even if they are unaware of the cause,” said a salesman for whom Metro Channel rallies are part of the scenery in front of his workplace. Lukas Bauman, a 21-year-old German living in the city for the past six months, said he had “become used to the rallies”, be it pre-Puja or now Christmas Eve.

Tuesday afternoon saw rallyists choking the Rajarhat Expressway as well. Trinamul supporters blocked one of the flanks as their leaders delivered lengthy speeches on land acquisition from a dais in front of the New Town Hidco office. “I took this route to avoid the snarls on VIP Road, only to be stuck here,” rued Arup Lahiri, driving to his Kasba home from the airport.