Bengal: Fresh row over Abhishek Banerjee’s Camac Street office

Kolkata, Aug 29 (IANS) A fresh controversy surfaced on Saturday about the party office of Trinamool Congress general secretary and Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha member Abhishek Banerjee at Camac Street in central Kolkata, which was already in dispute following Thursday’s row over the removal of an illegal billboard by Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and Kolkata Police. Rama Devi Goenka, the owner of the building, served a legal notice to Trinamool, accusing the party of violating the rent agreement for hiring space in the building for its office. It is learnt that the agreement between the owner of the building at 9 Camac Street and the youth wing of Trinamool was signed in 2020. Goenka’s counsel Sagnika Chattopadhyay told media persons on Saturday afternoon that in the legal notice the occupant had been asked to vacate the space, failing which legal steps would be initiated. According to her, a lease agreement was signed on March 1, 2020 between the building owner and the All India Youth Trinamool Congress. “The agreement was for ten years. There was a clause which said the owner would first give a completion certificate and only after that Trinamool Youth Congress would take possession of the sixth and seventh floors. But before that certificate was provided, the two floors were forcibly occupied,” she said. It is learnt that on behalf of the youth wing, the agreement was signed by former councillor of the then Trinamool‐run Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, Debraj Chakraborty, who is currently behind bars in a disproportionate assets case. The building owner’s counsel alleged that despite repeated requests to vacate the two floors, the occupants did not comply. “The occupants said they would take up the matter of the completion certificate with KMC authorities. We were unable to do anything then since Trinamool was in power in West Bengal. Now that the regime has changed, we have gained courage to approach the matter,” she said. She further alleged that the billboard removed by KMC and Kolkata Police on Thursday had been installed illegally without the owner’s permission. “We served the legal notice on August 25, and only after that the billboard was removed,” she said. --IANS src/dan