Spencer’s site at Gariahat vandalised

A 350-strong mob descended on the store that was to come up under the RPG Group-owned Spencer’s brand at 145, Rash Behari Avenue, next to the Basanti Devi College. They smeared the freshly-painted walls and the signboard with black paint.

Posters that read “Shops for VIPs would not be allowed” were pasted all around the shop. The contract workers engaged at the site were heckled.

The KMC councillor of ward number 85, Debashish Kumar, spearheaded the agitation.

Kumar alleged that when the building that stood there was torn down, most people who had shops in it had settled for compensation. But the owner of one of the shops, Khadi Emporium, moved the Calcutta High Court, asking for rehabilitation elsewhere.

“When we saw three days ago that the Spencer’s board had been put up, we were angry that the shopkeeper had not been given an alternative place and so we decided to protest,” Kumar said.

“Today’s agitation was because what is happening is illegal. But we are going to carry on with the protest against large format retail on moral grounds as well, as the livelihood of a lot of small shopkeepers is at stake.”

The demonstration continued till 12.20 pm before the police stepped in.

Kumar is an Independent councillor at the KMC, but is believed to be close to former Mayor Subrata Mukherjee, who subsequently left the Trinamool Congress and joined the Congress.

When contacted, Mukherjee said: “It is true that he was once an associate, but he is not with me anymore. I do not know what he is up to nowadays.”

Kumar himself confirmed his anti-Left stance and that he had supported the TMC board in the corporation during 2000, but said he had no connection with the party now.

Commenting on the incident, state agriculture marketing board chairman, Naren Chatterjee, who belongs to the Forward Bloc and has been mobilising support against the entry of big corporations into retail, said his party had no involvement in today’s incident.

But what happened today was bound to happen as more and more people were beginning to understand the “perils of opening up the retail sector in the state to big companies,” he said.

“We were the ones to raise our voice initially, but now others are protesting as well. We will stick by our opposition of the entry of retail giants and support every move to oppose them,” Chatterjee said.