By IANS,
Kolkata : A protest rally here Tuesday against FDI in retail turned out to be a two-hour long cultural meeting of pro-Trinamool Congress intellectuals and artists who blocked a part of the Esplanade area of the city.
A section of intellectuals of Kolkata, close to Trinamool COngress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, organised a protest rally in the heart of the city to protest the central government’s decision to allow FDI in multi-brand retail.
Intellectuals like painter Shuvaprasanna, painter Samir Aich, film director Haranath Chakrabarty, singer Indranil Sen, music composer Jeet Ganguly, theatre personality Bibhas Chakraborty, Arpita Ghosh, Saoli Mitra, sports personalities P.K. Banerjee and Amal Dutt, and actors Dev and Sandhya Roy were on the dais at the protest.
Bhibas Chakraborty recited lines of a play mocking retail FDI and the centre’s economic policies.
These are the same intellectuals who had jumped on Banerjee’s bandwagon during last year’s assembly polls in her fight to decimate the 34-year Left Front regime in the state.
Apart from a few words of expression against retail FDI, the protest turned out to be a cultural meeting of the intellectuals, where they sang songs from Rabindrasangeet to popular Bengali item numbers.
Banerjee, who was at the rally with other Trinamool Congress leaders as guests, was seen instructing the intellectuals to recite poetry.
Several actors and actresses of the Bengali film industry used the occasion to strike a rapport with Banerjee and other Trinamool Congress leaders.
“Are they protesting against retail FDI or spending a nice evening by singing songs and blocking roads? They should be ashamed for blocking roads,” said Santosh Pal, a banker.