Kolkata: “The chief minister has promised me a roof over my head,” Sita Mullick, a 60-year-old Free School Street pavement dweller, said on Tuesday morning after meeting CM Suvendu Adhikari at a BJP office in Salt Lake.Mullick had unwittingly triggered a political row on Saturday following a chance encounter with municipal affairs minister Agnimitra Paul. During an anti-encroachment drive in the Park Street-Free School Street area, Paul rebuked her for boiling milk on the pavement. Mullick told the minister the milk was for her grandson.A video of the exchange went viral. Many also forwarded a poem penned by Srijato on the incident. The opposition was quick to launch an attack on BJP, pointing out that “one is not poor by choice”. Former CM Mamata Banerjee, too, weighed in, promising to help Mullick and fund the education of her children.On Tuesday, Mullick, who said she had been staying on the pavement for 50 years, waited patiently outside the BJP office with her grandchild for an audience with the CM. Sources said BJP workers took her to meet Adhikari.As the CM was leaving the office after attending a Janatar Darbar, he spotted Mullick. He asked her name, how long she had been living on the pavement, which falls within Adhikari’s Bhowanipore assembly constituency, and how she eked out a living.She told him they had been living on the pavement for nearly five decades and had nowhere else to go. “Some Trinamool workers approached us after the incident, but I told them I did not need their help. We have never received help from any political party or the govt. I have heard about you and wanted to meet you here,” she told Adhikari.The CM replied, “I will tell KMC commissioner Smita Pandey-ji to arrange accommodation for you elsewhere.”For the first time in 50 years, Sita Mullick did not return to the Free School Street pavement on Tuesday. She was taken to a Kolkata Municipal Corporation-run shelter in Beleghata for some time. “We are looking for a more permanent arrangement for them,” a KMC official said.Adhikari later told reporters, “The Leftists are penning poems about the incident, but they never bothered to improve the condition of pavement-dwellers… Mamata Banerjee was in office for 15 years, yet she never asked about their well-being.” The CM said the woman had been offered money by Trinamool to speak against the BJP govt.BJP functionary Naveen Mishra said, “We have known the family for long. She trusts this govt.”BJP sources said the woman’s husband, who worked as a sweeper, died a few years ago.Mullick’s elder daughter Puja Biswas had earlier told TOI, “My mother grew up here (on the pavement) and we were born right here.” Mullick had said the minister also asked her whether she was a Bangladeshi. “I said no.”Paul said on Sunday: “They were told earlier as well not to stay on the pavement. She (Mullick) herself told me she has a house in Dhapa.”The minister posted a message on social media on Monday, saying no child had been deprived of milk. She, however, admitted that she should have been gentler while interacting with the woman.
