Faction feud out in the open

KOLKATA: The Trinamool bedlam at Burn Standard’s Howrah factory is an ugly manifestation of the wrangling match between two Trinamool trade unions, one led by Trinamool veteran Shobhandeb Chattopadhyay and the other by the party’s young turk Dola Sen.
Former Burn Standard employee Gopal Bhattacharya leading the militant group claims allegiance to Dola Sen while the Trinamool’s other face Sailesh Rai heads the company recognized trade union loyal to Shobhandeb Chattopadhyay.
Bhattacharya reportedly enjoys the backing of a section of Trinamool’s Howrah leaders who wants their man to hold sway replacing Congress-turned Trinamool councillor and trade unionist Sailesh Rai. Even senior MMiCs of the Howrah Municipal Corporation (HMC) didn’t hesitate to put the company at stake for petty politics. The bedlam didn’t go down well among Trinamool ranks, prompting party district president and minister Arup Ray to caution MMiC Gautam Chowdhury who led the rampage on Wednesday.
Ray was in touch with Sailesh Rai all through the day presumably because Rai was important to him. As leader of the recognized union, Rai was negotiating with the Burn Standard management over ways to get back the 175 laid off contractual workers to work. The company also signed an agreement with the Inttuc union on January 12, 2014 on the absorption plan. However, things went haywire after Gopal Bhattacharya entered the scene and raised the pitch of agitation promising quick results to workers. Bhattacharya wouldn’t pay heed to the bipartite pact rolling out the absorption in two tranches — 127 in the first lot and the remaining 48 in the second lot. Instead, Bhattacharya demanded absorption of all the employees at one go.
With most of the contractual workers joining his camp on Thursday, Rai said: “Some outsiders forced into the factory. I was in the dark. Mayor-in-council members Gautam Chowdhury and Shyamal Mitra didn’t even bother to inform me about their plan. Employees have been made the scapegoat. This is against the CM’s directive.”