People's Democracy

An Isolated Opposition Continues To Indulge In Murder, Mayhem, And Lies

B Prasant

RIGHT from the day the panchayat elections were announced in Bengal, the opposition parties, the Trinamul Congress (TMC), the Pradesh Congress, the BJP, the Jharkhandis, the SUCI, the People’s War Group, and the sundry fringe “ultra” Left outfits, have started a miserable clamour about “terror” being unleashed against them in the state.

The charges raised by these parties more-or-less speak about much the same thing.  They cheerlessly say that their candidates are being forced to stay away from filing nominations.  Moreover, even where the opposition candidates have filed nominations, they moan, they are subsequently made to withdraw their papers under duress.

The number quoted in this context generally fluctuates in between 20,000 to 30,000.  Who is to blame for this state of affairs?  Why, the CPI (M), of course. And what is the remedy?  Bring about Article 356, and dismiss the democratically elected Left Front government to “save democracy”, no less.

The woeful cry has been duly taken up on cue by a section of the corporate media.  One could realise that the panchayat polls have been announced merely by noting the quick change that has overtaken the editorial contents of the big press and the corporate-run audio-visual media. 

BOGEY OF “TERROR” RAISED

Overnight, dozens of vague charges against the CPI (M) started to be raised: sometimes the sedate contents of the news items did not match the venom of the brassy headlines, and substantiation be damned.  Suddenly, we were bombarded with scintillating stories on violence being committed on women all over rural Bengal.  Large chunks of the page one stories focussed on how doleful the opposition leadership felt over the “end of democracy, alas, in Bengal.”  All through, the subtext was that the time for “a change” has (again) come. 

Of the print media, the Ananda Bazar Patrika- Telegraph group and the Statesman have been the most clamorous in spewing unremitting venom against the CPI (M) while the battle royale against the “Red menace” in the audio-visual media has been led by the E-TV and the Rainbow News (the producers of the scurrilously anti-Left news programme, Khas Khabar).

All along, the discerning people could not but fail to note that beyond the hue-and-cry emanating from the opposition, and suitably garnished and served in stories in the media, the bogey of “terror in the countryside” remained largely devoid of a factual basis.  Throughout the period leading to the filing of nomination papers, not a single case has been registered either with the police or with the State Election Commission about forcible prevention of filing of nominations by Panchayat candidates. 

Similarly, not one single complaint has been lodged with the authorities about opposition candidates finding themselves compelled under threat to withdraw nomination papers.  Indeed, when one TMC candidate verbally spoke about “intimidation”, the Police were prompt to escort him to the election office.  That the worthy would not finally decide to fork out the statutory deposit is, of course, another issue altogether.

OPPOSITION IN DESPAIR

So, what went wrong for the opposition parties?  The answer lies in the deep despair that had visibly overtaken the opposition leadership right after the panchayat polls have been announced (a self-appointed lieutenant of the Trinamul Congress supremo, Mamata Banerjee, was recently driven to attempt suicide over a long-standing internecine strife that came to the fore suddenly).  With a mass base that is crumbling fast, the opposition leaders found themselves hard put to field candidates in the 58,357 seats that are being contested at the three tiers of the Panchayat system. 

A vast number of workers and supporters of the Trinamul Congress, the Pradesh Congress, and the BJP, in particular, have frankly expressed their firm view that “they would not contest the polls merely to lose their deposits.”  A sizeable section of the opposition leaders, too, must have carefully weighed the implications of the booth-wise results of the last Assembly elections and concluded that that it was no use putting up candidates in booths where the Left Front has garnered 60-70 per cent of the votes polled.  They ended up, as we found out, effectively encouraging their cadres to stay away from the election process itself – and democracy be damned.

The state-of-affairs overwhelming the strength and popularity of the opposition alliance was clearly put on show on April 24 in Kolkata where the BJP-Trinamul alliance organised a much-hyped “central” rally.  According to official estimates of the organisers themselves, no more than 2000-odd people turned up at the meeting. 

The CPI (M) general secretary, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, in Kolkata briefly the day after the TMC-BJP rally, rightly wondered about the reason why the organisers of the meeting were not able to muster at the rally even a fraction of the 30,000 of those who were supposed to have been deprived of their right to contest the polls by the CPI (M).

As a measure of saving face, and to attack the CPI (M) and the Left Front, the strategy of “terror” was fabricated by the vested interests and by the political parties who act as their mouthpieces.

However, this is never to contend that terror has been conspicuous by its absence, despite the best efforts of the Left Front and the Left Front government, in the countryside of Bengal in the run up to the panchayat polls.  Terror has been, and is being, consistently perpetrated on the CPI (M) and the Left Front, and by those very elements who speak of being deprived of the democratic rights to take part in the elections by the CPI (M).

TRUE FACE OF TERROR IN COUNTRYSIDE

In a series of murderous assaults, the TMC, the BJP, the Pradesh Congress, the Jharkhandis, and the People’s War Group have assassinated no less than eight CPI (M) workers.  On April 3, CPI (M) worker, Comrade Biplab Ghosh was killed at the Hatmur village at Ketugram in Bardhaman.  Comrade Dulal Singh was assassinated at Patikhali village in Canning in south 24 Parganas on April 4.  April 8 saw Comrade Mathur Shee shot and killed at Khanakul in Hooghly.  The next day, Comrade Jagatjyoti Das was murdered at Nandigram in Midnapore (east).  On April 14, Comrade Mantu Sheikh was shot to death at Hudaherampore village in Murshidabad. On April 20, Comrade Joy Ghosh was hacked to death at Dhantala in Nadia.  Besides, CPI worker Comrade Sirajul Islam was killed in his sleep at Harihapara in Murshidabad on April 11.

In Belpahari, on April 26, at the westernmost fringe of Midnapore (west), goons of the People’s War Group have been intermittently descending on the isolated villages on the edge of the forest area and threatening the villagers not to vote for the CPI (M) but to cast their votes in favour of the TMC.

On April 23 at Itahar in north Dinajpore, the Pradesh Congress leader and a Pradhan of a local Gram Panchayat led an assault on CPI (M) workers when the latter protested the Congress leader’s decision to flout electoral rules and to distribute tube wells in the area.  At least a dozen CPI (M) workers had to be hospitalised.

At Batukchandpur in Nawada, Murshidabad, two CPI (M) workers, Imran Sheikh and his brother, Minnan Sheikh were slashed at with sharp weapons by Pradesh Congress goons, and they are in a hospital fighting for their lives.

On April 24, at the Santoshpur village in Tarakeswar in Hooghly, miscreants in the patronage of the BJP, and led by the local RSS chief, Nimai Adhikary, assaulted two CPI (M) workers, Shrikanta Adhikary and his brother, Ramchandra Adhikary with scythes and scimitars and left them for dead.  The brothers have subsequently been admitted a to a local hospital and in a serious condition.