The West Bengal unit of Congress is set to organize a protest on July 21 to counter the Trinamool Congress’s annual Martyrs’ Day rally. This rally by the Trinamool Congress, held each year, commemorates the killing of 13 youth Congress workers in 1993 during the CPI(M)-led Left Front regime. Initially, the Martyrs’ Day observance was a Congress event until Mamata Banerjee formed the Trinamool Congress in 1998, taking over the tradition.
Following the recent landslide defeat of the Trinamool Congress in the Assembly polls, the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee has decided to hold a counter-rally on July 21. The state Congress’s rally will focus on demanding the reopening of investigations into the role of former West Bengal Home Secretary, Manish Gupta, in the police firing incident on July 21, 1993.
The state Congress president in West Bengal, Suvankar Sarkar, emphasized the importance of revealing the truth behind the events of that day and the administrative decisions made. Sarkar stressed the need for transparency by making the ‘Manish Gupta file’ public. Additionally, there are calls for an investigation into why the Trinamool Congress regime under Mamata Banerjee avoided a thorough probe into Gupta’s involvement in the 1993 police firing.
Manish Gupta, who later joined the Trinamool Congress, played a significant role in West Bengal politics. He won the Jadavpur Assembly constituency in 2011, defeating the then Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. Gupta served as the power minister in Mamata Banerjee’s cabinet from 2011 to 2016 before moving to the Rajya Sabha after a defeat in the 2016 elections.
