People's Democracy

N the conference of Chief Ministers called by the Union Government on Internal Security, the chief ministers of the Left Front governments of West Bengal and Tripura have opposed POTO.

West Bengal Chief Minister Bhuddadeb Bhattacharjee in his speech stated: "We are, however, opposed to the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) recently promulgated by the union government. ‘Public order’, which is synonymous with public peace, safety and tranquility, being a state subject in list II of the Constitution of India, it is up to the state government to decide whether any special legislation is necessary to deal with organised terrorist activities/crimes. There is no need for a Central legislation. Besides, our experience in the past has shown that provisions of various Acts like TADA were misused and applied against political opponents indiscriminately. The definition of a "terrorist act" in the present Ordinance is extremely wide and can be misused to book political opponents. For example, "disruption of any supplies or services essential to the life of the Community" may even be selectively and conveniently applied to any agitation by employees of public sector undertakings or any other legitimate democratic movement. Moreover, the Ordinance also carries rather stringent provisions, which may be applied against journalists. We have, therefore, decided not to apply the provisions of POTO in our state."

Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar in his speech said: "based on our past experience with legislation like MISA and TADA and objections raised by human right bodies, we had expressed our reservations about enactment of the bill for prevention of terrorism. But it appears that an Ordinance has been issued by the Central Government without taking the final views of the state government as requested by us."