kolkata kolkatas tryst with power failures seems neverending now and this time the stakes were considerably high consider this chief minister mamata banerjee on the dais surrounded by nearly 20000 people only a few of whom have undergone some basic frisking while entering the netaji indoor stadium a handful of security personnel doing their best to keep people away from the dais and there was a sudden blackout at the venue venue suddenly there was a power gets enveloped in complete darkness kolkatas record of power failures at crucial moments remained intact on tuesday evening but this time the stakes was considerably higher officers in charge of mamata banerjees security admitted that they could have done little to thwart an attempt on the cms life with so many people around the venue had decked up for a meeting of imams from different parts of the state and the chief guest was mamata banerjee though the meeting was scheduled to start at 4pm people started flocking the stadium premises from 2pm onwards with so many people entering together the best that the onduty policemen could do was waving their handheld metal detectors at random after people crossed the door frame metal detectors many entered with bags but only a few could come under security checks the best that the policemen could manage was a glance at the bags it was a complete security messup but then there were instructions of not getting too harsh as the imams were guests and the government did not want to hurt sentiments there wasnt proper frisking of those who entered the ground floor and came close to the dais we were alarmed when the power supply tripped an officer said mamata had started her rounds on the dais soon after the programme began on a couple of occasions she had even come extremely close to the people standing just below the dais a police officer claimed that when the blackout happened at 430pm he had no clue about the exact location of the cm on the dais for the next couple of minutes the only lights inside the stadium were from camera flashes and cell phone screens when the emergency lights flashed the cm was seen speaking to someone on her cell phone her face revealed that she was clearly not amused at the disruption that had taken place it took another 20 odd minutes for normal power supply to resume strangely neither cesc nor the pwd which are in charge of the stadium could explain why the power disruption took place we were informed and our men rushed to the premises but there was no disruption in the high tension ht power supply in fact the keys to the ht supply room are with the pwd their men opened the room and checked the supply but found nothing wrong there could have been a low voltage switch failure a cesc official said the pwd however maintained that cesc officials can only comment