Kolkata: Trinamool Congress candidate for Rashbehari constituency Debasish Kumar has always been a late riser. Friday morning would have been no different. Kumar had been on a whirlwind tour of his constituency on Thursday night, returned home well past midnight and went to sleep at 2 am. But he was rudely woken up at 6 am when ‘unwanted’ guests — a posse of I-T officers with central force personnel in tow — reached his second-floor Monoharpukur Road flat in south Kolkata.A seasoned politician that he is, Kumar did not display any resistance and agreed to sit before them. Little did he know that it would turn into a test of his patience. The ordeal continued all day. News also reached Kumar that I-T officers had even reached his nonagenarian mother-in-law’s flat on Monoharpukur Second Lane.Outside, his supporters who had got wind of the I-T raid and gathered to lend support to their neta, were restless. By noon, the crowd had grown significantly with the local residents joining party activists in solidarity. Sensing the situation was tense, Kumar sent out an instruction that there should be no trouble outside as that would only benefit his political rival. Jayanta Manna, Kumar’s childhood friend who took leave from the private firm where he works to camp near his residence since early morning, remarked. “I have come here to show my solidarity to my friend. The I-T officers have the right to interrogate, but they don’t have the right to harass a politician. I won’t leave the place till Kumar is freed from their clutches.” Neighbours also waited patiently for the I-T officers to exit. Supriti Maitra, a model by profession who had come with her father, said that though she had no interest in politics, she had come in Kumar’s support as he was a father figure to her. “This is simply harassment,” she said.Trinamool Congress party offices were not spared either. A Trinamool office meant for the party’s Ballygunge candidate Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay was taken over by I-T officers. Chandra Sekhar Pandey, an octogenarian who stays on the first floor of the building that was taken over, said he was frightened when he saw strangers taking over the ground-floor party office. “My son, who is principal of a reputable south Kolkata school, confronted the central govt officials without fear and later came to understand that it was part of an I-T raid,” said Pandey.Though the supporters displayed patience, braving heat and humidity on a sultry afternoon, they confronted the CAPF jawans when a couple of party workers were barred from entering Kumar’s residence with an I-T file on poll expenditure that was supposed to be signed by the candidate, Kumar, and submitted at the EC office latest by 5.30 pm on Friday. A commotion followed as a Trinamool worker holding the file was made to wait for half an hour. Finally, the jawans relented and let him in. By 4.30 pm, a demonstration was started by the agitating Trinamool supporters in support of their neta’s release. As dusk descended, more supporters joined the movement. They vowed not to leave the spot till the I-T officers and jawans left.
