Kolkata: The 91-year-old Chorbagan Durga Puja witnessed a dramatic change of guard barely three months before pujas with most office-bearers this time being first-timers.The original committee was replaced by a new team that placed BJP Jorasanko MLA Bijoy Ojha as chairman, north Kolkata district president Tamaghna Ghosh as chief adviser and Debdeep Adhikari, the chief minister’s kin, as chief patron. seven people, including puja committee secretary Rajkumar Sewda, vice-president Shantanu Dubey, Biplab Mukhopadhyay, who was responsible for installing the bamboo structure, and Kaushik Saha and Pintu De, who were in charge of crowd management. On Thursday, committee treasurer Sanjeev Raha was arrested.Sewda alias Raja (48) had spent his childhood here, having shifted to a different address several years ago though he regularly kept visiting his ancestral home on Muktaram Babu Street. This was Sewda’s first brush with top-tier puja management. His closest link to Sarada Park, the venue of the Chorbagan puja, was playing cricket with locals like Nitesh Singh and Ayush Khurana, who became the first responders on Oct 17, rescuing the trapped visitors and rushing the injured to hospital.The terms of reference of the SIT probe bring into its ambit the roles also played by the organisers. It states: “To ascertain whether any lapse, negligence, dereliction of duty or failure of coordination is attributable to the organisers, police authorities, Kolkata Municipal Corporation, public works department, fire and emergency services, CESC Limited or any other agency or individual, and to recommend appropriate action in accordance with law wherever warranted.”Chorbagan’s management changed hands in July. A letter dated July 17, purportedly signed by former general secretary Jayanta Banerjee, stated that he was relinquishing his responsibilities and that members of the executive committee were also being relieved of theirs. Former committee members said the change was accompanied by pressure on the outgoing team to resign.Ojha said, “My role as chairperson is largely ornamental. I am part of many of the 105 Durga Pujas held here. The actual role is played by the local organisers. Even here (in Chorbagan), the committee may have changed, but locals were there. It is not that outsiders were organising the puja. Many committees have changed hands. The incident took place only in one. But I cannot comment more since this is under probe.”The transition was reflected in the unusual sequence of two Khuti Pujas, the ceremonies marking the start of pandal construction, within a month. The first, organised by the outgoing team, was attended by BJP functionaries like Locket Chatterjee and Kaustuv Bagchi. The second ceremony was held after the new committee took charge and a new artist joined the project. It was attended by several BJP functionaries, including former Kolkata deputy mayor Meena Devi Purohit and Guddu Maharaj, a mahant associated with the Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi.“It was almost a hostile takeover with the members of the former committee given a deadline to resign. Many former committee members were also told to post on social media that they were no longer associated with the puja,” said a BJP functionary in the area.Former members of the Chorebagan Sarbajanin Durgotsav Samity said the approach to the pandal was particularly difficult to manage because of the narrow stretch, which they likened to a “chicken’s neck”.“Over the years, we had developed a system of deploying volunteers with ropes at several points along Amar Basu Sarani to regulate visitors’ movement and prevent a rush,” a former committee member said, requesting anonymity.The earlier arrangement also included a buffer zone between visitors entering the pandal and those waiting in queue, the former member said. “This separation is essential to prevent the two groups from converging and creating an uncontrollable rush. I have learnt that the buffer zone was missing this year,” the person added.A senior resident of Chorbagan said: “Some of the new committee members are unfamiliar with the area. There also appears to have been a lack of coordination between the police and the organisers.”Chorbagan was among several prominent pujas to see changes in their organising structures after the BJP’s Assembly election victory ended 15 years of TMC rule.(With additional inputs by Dwaipayan Ghosh)
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