WHERE THERE IS A WILL... For once, Calcutta displayed the will to work on a bandh day. At the Lake Town crossing on VIP Road at 11.10am on Monday, schoolchildren and office-goers were desperately seeking a way to beat the bandh blocks. Picture by Sanat Kr Sinha

There’s a new kid on the bandh block, bearing the stamp of saffron in a city awash with red and green.

Monday morning saw the BJP unleashing on Calcutta organised bandh hooliganism usually attributed to the CPM and the Trinamul Congress. The saffron foot soldiers who laid siege to the streets of the city during the morning rush hour not only caught the administration napping but also left many wondering where they had suddenly come from.

Gautam, 17, was in the group that set a bus ablaze in Baguiati and damaged four private cars. When Metro traced him to Dakshingram village, in Rajarhat, the Class X student was narrating to friends his role in the “first successful BJP-called bandh in the city”.

“My father is a CPM supporter. I was one until some months ago. I switched sides because I am told that the BJP is the party of the future and offers opportunities to young people like me…. I intend joining politics someday,” he said.

Gautam’s village and its adjacent localities, all under the Trinamul Congress-ruled No. 2 Jyangra Hatiara Gram Panchayat, accounted for the 350-odd “BJP activists” responsible for the arson and intimidation on VIP Road, at Karunamoyee in Salt Lake, on the Rajarhat Expressway and at the DLF building.

The schoolboy admitted that money was a motivation. “We juniors are supposed to get Rs 50-100 for our work today,” he said.

Mother Papia protested that he was being misled. “Dekhun amar chheler mathay ki bhoot chepechhe (Look, how my son has lost his head).”

Bhabasindhu Mondal, who mobilised a bandh brigade

Local BJP leader Bhabasindhu Mondal alias Batulda, the deputy chief of the panchayat, claimed that his party had “a presence in the area” for 15 years. “Why are you so surprised that we have a base in the city? We were allies of the Trinamul not so long ago,” he said.

On Monday, the foot soldiers from the area were divided into four bandh teams and despatched to Baguiati, Kestopur, Karunamoyee and New Town. Class V dropout Shyamapada, 22, took a day’s break from working at a construction site in Teghoria to terrorise office-goers in front of the DLF building in New Town. “We are doing this to protest price rise, which no other party seems bothered about,” he said.

State BJP president Rahul Sinha admitted that the “bandh workforce” was not from the city proper but denied having paid them.

No. 2 Jyangra Hatiara Gram Panchayat has a 25,000-strong electorate. Of the 19 panchayat members, nine are from Trinamul, eight from CPM and two from the BJP.