Shyamal Chakraborty, CITU state president and CPM central committee member, however added,

“It is true that lesser vehicles, private and government, ran”.

Explaining the dearth of buses on the road, he said: “As the General Insurance Company does not cover damages to buses during strikes, our men did not run buses today. Some private buses did not ply either. New buses have been introduced and a windowpane costs around Rs 5000.”

The trade wing claimed that five CSTC buses were damaged today and two yesterday as Trinamool supporters attacked them. Three of the drivers were injured. According to CITU, 435 government buses and 93 trams were on the roads today, which is less than other strikes. It also accepted that many of the employees at Writers’ Buildings were absent due to unavailability of transport. There was normalcy in rural areas, including panchayat and zilla parishad offices in the districts though.

The CITU leaders, however, maintained that the strike failed to touch the industrial belt of Bengal.

“Work went on normally at the tea gardens, be it Dooars or Terai. Work at the industrial belt in Durgapur and Asansol was undisturbed. The scenario is the same in Haldia. The Tata project in Singur was also untouched by the strike. At many places workers stayed overnight in the factories,” said CITU state secretary Kali Ghosh.

Lambasting the Trinamool Congress, he alleged that the Essential Commodities Act was diluted in the NDA regime, which is responsible for the price hike.

“We are pressurising the UPA to amend it. The WTO treaty should also be rectified.” The strike, he said, is a show-off before the panchayat elections.