A 73-year-old woman from Hatibagan finally managed to stop political banners being put up outside her home after a ten-month struggle on Saturday.
During this time, she had called the mayor multiple times and also visited the Shyampukur police station.
On Saturday, the woman, who lives with her son and requested not to be named, again called mayor Firhad Hakim during the weekly phone-in programme Talk to Mayor and said that a banner still stood just outside her two-storied house.
Hakim paused for a few seconds and then asked his security staff to connect him with the officer in charge (OC) of Shyampukur police station.
Once the call was connected, Hakim first gave the address of the house to the OC and then said: “There is a banner outside this address. Please remove it. If anyone from our party objects, tell them that it is being removed under my instructions.”
The Telegraph was present in the room where Hakim spoke to the OC over the phone. The mayor’s voice was amplified by microphones in front of his seat.
Earlier, the woman told The Telegraph in August that the first banner was put up ahead of Holi (March) last year. She had said that she feared that a frame made of bamboo that was put up within 2 feet of her home would become a permanent structure there.
The police station, barely 500m from the address, that had been sitting idle on the woman’s pleas for ten months, swung into action on Saturday. The banner was removed within an hour of the mayor’s phone call.
Paritosh Bhaduri, the officer in charge of Shyampukur police station, said the police and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) jointly removed the banner. Asked why the banner was not removed earlier despite the woman’s appeals, the officer said: “We can’t answer this question. It was a political banner.”
The episode shows how removing a banner that blocks someone’s house can be an uphill task in Kolkata, especially if the ruling party has put it up.
The latest banner was put up ahead of the foundation day of the Trinamul Congress on January 1.
“It had a picture of the chief minister. There is a slum inside the lane and we put up the banner to invite the people living in that slum for our foundation day event,” said Khokhon Das, a local Trinamul functionary. “It did not block her house in any way,” he added.
When The Telegraph had reported about the woman’s appeals in August, a separate banner, with an image of the chief minister stood, outside her house. That banner was about Trinamul’s July 21 rally and was not removed even after the rally was over.
The bamboo frame in August was smaller than the frame seen outside her house on Saturday.
“They changed the frame and put up larger banners,” said the woman.
Though the banner had been removed on Saturday, the bamboo frame still stood there.
