The committee’s ire followed Chakraborty’s statement that the state transport department did not want to run a larger number of buses, as that would not be cost-effective.

“What is the use of spending money on diesel when few people come out of their houses during a strike,” the minister commented at the Writers’ Buildings today.

“On every bandh, at least 40 per cent people, our committed supporters, come to office. But this time, many could not come because of this decision of the transport department. It is ridiculous. Running buses is not a question of making profit or incurring losses. You do it for a principle,” Ananta Banerjee, general secretary of the Coordination Committee, told The Indian Express.

He himself had to wait for two hours to get a bus to reach office, Banerjee said.

So far as private buses were concerned, there were fewer of them.