Kolkata, Aug 15 (IANS) Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee unfurled the tricolour and took the salute as West Bengal joined the nation in celebrating the 64th Independence Day Sunday amid tight security.
Bhattacharjee also offered floral tributes at the Martyrs’ Column as the police band played the national anthem in a brief but colourful programme near the state secretariat Writers’ Buildings.
National Cadet Corps volunteers and Rapid Action Force personnel presented a guard of honour before the programme ended with a cultural show by a choral group. Senior bureaucrats and police officers were present.
Governor M.K. Narayanan took part in a prayer meeting and offered flowers at the Mahatma Gandhi memorial column in Gandhighat of North 24 Pargana district’s Barrackpore, about 25 km from here.
State Public Works Department Minister Kshiti Goswami, Director General of Police Bhupinder Singh and a large number of school children were present at the function which ended with the rendering of ‘Ramdhun’.
As in earlier years, the main opposition Trinamool Congress raised the national flag at a midnight function near the busy Hazra crossing of south Kolkata. Hundreds of enthusiastic party activists sang patriotic songs.
Banerjee, however, could not be present as she was indisposed.
The national flag was also unfurled at offices of major political parties, government departments, public sector undertakings across the state.
City Mayor Sovan Chatterjee raised the tri-colour at a function in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation headquarters.
Similar programmes were organised in the headquarters of the Eastern and South Eastern Railway.
The national flag was raised in all district headquarters. In a bid to prevent any breach of peace, exit and entry points to the metropolis have been kept under intense vigil and police personnel deployed in large numbers on the roads, crowded places and important instalments like railways stations and airports as also religious places.
Twelve quick response teams are on duty across the city and several police pickets have been posted.
Special security arrangements have been made in the villages along the state’s borders with Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan and also across the Junglemahal (Maoist-dominated forested areas of West Midnapore, Purulia and Bankura).
