The Brigade Parade Ground and the surrounding Maidan areas, where the BJP held its rally on Saturday, were still filled with garbage and litter on Sunday.
On Sunday, hundreds of visitors to the Maidan had to partake in activities on the grounds as cups and plates flew through the air with the wind. Especially along the borders, there were significant accumulations of refuse and wasted food.
The state public works department, which is responsible for the upkeep of the Maidan, has engaged more than 15 people to clean the grounds, pavements and roads in the Maidan area. A PWD official said that given the volume of waste, it will take two or three days to clear it.
The organisers of a rally are supposed to clean the ground after the rally, said the official.
A BJP leader told Metro they engaged volunteers to clear the waste. The volunteers were working outside Howrah and Sealdah stations, at major inter-city bus terminuses and on the Maidan.
When Metro visited the Maidan on Sunday afternoon, five PWD men were cleaning the garbage from the Brigade Parade Ground. No BJP volunteers could be seen.
Styrofoam plates, cups, plastic bags, papers, and food leftovers were strewn across the ground. It was a similar picture at the Howrah Union ground.
On Saturday, while many people had assembled inside a barricaded area in the Brigade to listen to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other BJP leaders, many party workers had remained outside the barricaded area and on the fringes of the grounds.
The buses were parked in many other grounds in the Maidan and along some of the roads, like Mayo Road.
Party workers who had come from the districts in these buses cooked their lunch on the Maidan.
The plates and food leftovers were later discarded on the Maidan.
A group of young men who had come to the Maidan to play cricket were disturbed to see the state of the ground. “We cleaned up a portion to play cricket, especially the pitch,” said one of them.
“Parties organising rallies on the Maidan are responsible for cleaning the grounds once the rally ends. They are given sufficient time to remove the dais, other structures and remove the garbage,” a PWD official said.
According to another official, the PWD oversees the Maidan’s upkeep with a team of workers cleaning the grounds and other public areas daily. “Otherwise, the Maidan would not be kept so clean. Hundreds of people visit the grounds on weekends and holidays,” an official stated.
The tepid response of the state authorities in cleaning the Maidan was also stark. After every July 21 rally of the Trinamool Congress, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation deploys hundreds of its workers to clean the streets. The Maidan is cleaned within hours or by the next morning.
There was no such alacrity on Sunday. KMC sources said it was not responsible for cleaning the Maidan.