Calcutta’s mayor and Trinamool’s councillors were shut out of the council chamber at the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) headquarters on Friday when they arrived for the monthly meeting of civic representatives.

Chairperson Mala Roy and mayor Firhad Hakim alleged that the secretary refused to unlock the room even after the chairperson, the presiding officer of the monthly meetings, asked for the chamber to be opened.

Unable to access the hall, the councillors sat here and there in the adjacent Councillors’ Club Room, where KMC chairperson Roy presided over the meeting.

BJP councillor and MLA Sajal Ghosh suggested later that an administrator should run the corporation, alleging that his party’s members had not been informed about the meeting.

After a day of dramatic developments, Trinamool Congress chief and former chief minister Mamata Banerjee urged the councillors to “fight”.

She asked them to sit on a dharna outside the KMC headquarters if required. She said the councillors should use hand mikes during the protest and not expect to be allowed to erect a protest dais.

Later in the evening, KMC chairperson Roy lodged a complaint at New Market police station, highlighting how the monthly session had been called off.

Municipal commissioner Smita Pandey said the House “had to be deferred” based on “some inputs” and that she had informed Hakim about this in advance.

The stage for the confrontation had been set after the BJP stormed to power in the Assembly.

A mayoral council meeting was called off on May 18 as the KMC commissioner, who convenes the meeting, cited unavailability on the day. Sources said Pandey was asked to remain present in a meeting chaired by chief minister Suvendu Adhikari that day.

The probable last straw was the cancellation of the monthly meeting of councillors. Scheduled for Friday, the meeting was called off on Thursday.

Trinamool had asked its councillors to present themselves in the corporation on Friday, around the time the council meeting was scheduled.

After nearly 90 Trinamool councillors arrived — the party has 136 councillors in the 140-member KMC House — the council chamber was still locked. A group of councillors carried a letter from the chairperson to the secretary, asking that the chamber
be opened.

“The letter asked the secretary under whose instructions he called off the meeting, and under what law. I have not received any reply. To keep the council chamber locked is unprecedented,” Mala Roy said.

“The meeting had been called at 2pm. Despite our letter, the secretary did not open the council chamber,” Roy said.

Hakim said that while the BJP was saying no elected board would be dissolved, they were not allowing the boards to function either.

“Despite many attempts, the council chamber was not opened. This is an insult to all elected representatives. This is akin to not opening the Assembly after convening a session, or not opening Parliament for a session,” Hakim said at the club room.

“I have told the commissioner that the state government will do its own work, and we (KMC) will do ours. When the state government has said that no board of any municipal body will be dissolved, then let them work. I would still tell the state that there should be no conflict. We have to work together. Monsoon is near. There are issues about conservancy,” he said.

Multiple Trinamool councillors said the secretary did not follow protocol when he did not open the council chamber on Friday.

Kishore Kumar Biswas, a WBCS officer, assumed charge as KMC secretary only on Friday morning.

He replaced Swapan Kumar Kundu, also a WBCS officer, who was transferred to a relatively less important post of OSD, state gazetters, on Thursday. Sources said Kundu had issued the letters convening Friday’s monthly meeting after he received instructions from chairperson Roy.

“The official letter convening the meeting is issued by the KMC secretary under instructions from the chairperson. If a meeting has to be called off, it can be done only following instructions from the chairperson,” a former KMC official told The Telegraph.

Sources said Kundu was forced to call off the monthly meeting by senior officials of the state government, though there was no instruction from the chairperson.

Roy’s police complaint mentioned that the “conduct of concerned officials amounts to interference with the democratic functioning of the elected municipal body”. Such actions raise questions of “abuse and misuse of official authority”, “wilful overreach beyond administrative jurisdiction” and “obstruction of lawful democratic and institutional procedure”, she alleged.

Pandey told this newspaper: “There were some inputs based on which the House had to be deferred. I had informed the mayor. He told me that there has to be at least one meeting every month and that there was still time to organise it. “The way the councillors conducted themselves is unacceptable. They heckled and abused the secretary, who joined only today. He had not even taken charge. If the commissioner is not cooperating, there are legal ways to deal with it. It doesn’t mean they can abuse one of our officers. We are going to take legal action against those who indulged in these activities.”

At Friday’s meeting, the Trinamool councillors spoke against Pandey.

A councillor mooted a proposal that the commissioner be reminded that the mayor was above her in hierarchy and she could not take decisions on her own without consulting the mayoral council or the mayor.

“Bulldozers were pressed into action in Calcutta by the commissioner without the knowledge of the mayor. The commissioner is acting at the behest of the state government,” a councillor alleged.

After the Trinamool councillors left, the BJP’s Ghosh arrived. “How could a monthly session be held without informing the Opposition councillors?” he asked.

The BJP has only three councillors. “This is illegal. An administrator should run the corporation. Let the commissioner run the KMC,” Ghosh said.

“If we bring a no-confidence motion, will the mayor be able to save his board? People from his party who are protesting will desert him. I have call recordings of 10 of them who are willing to come this side,” he added.