People's Democracy

Political Discussions And Debates Enrich

Bengal CPI(M) Conferences  

B Prasant

POLITICAL debates and discourses have enriched the ongoing zonal and district conferences of the Bengal CPI(M).  This was the general assessment of the state secretariat of the Bengal unit of the CPI(M) whilst meeting for its weekly review and discussion on December 12 at the Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan in Kolkata.  State secretary of the CPI(M) Anil Biswas told this to the Kolkata media on the late afternoon of the same day.

The delegates at the district and zonal conferences – the majority of the zones already have had their conferences – have sought to focus on national and state-level issues in the main and a picture is gradually emerging about the direction the CPI(M) would take in the days to come.  The picture will become clearer when the central committee of the CPI(M) meets in Kolkata between January 8 and 10 2005.

Anil Biswas did point out that a concerted effort was going on even as the Party conferences were being held in a very healthy atmosphere to malign the CPI(M) and to belittle it before the eyes of the people.  Such an attempt has been witnessed in a nefarious scheme that was subsequently and suitably exposed for what it was worth after being probed into by the CPI(M).  Anil Biswas has briefed the media on the incident that was given wide publicity by the Ananda Bazaar Patrika and the Kolkata edition of the Times of India. 

The corporate media made a big hue-and-cry over the alleged accusation of a woman member a branch under the Taltala local committee in midtown Kolkata.  The concerned Party member, Nagma Begum raised the allegation against a CPI(M) leader of the locality, Bhajan Guha that the latter had offered her the lure of a job and had sold her off after taking her to Kashmir.  The opposition took up the song-and dance routine over the affair calling it having spilled over from an ‘internal issue of the CPI(M) to become a public issue.’

State secretariat member and secretary of the Kolkata district unit of the CPI(M) Raghunath Kushari made the necessary inquiry into the matter himself.  His probe has produced conclusive evidence that Nagma Begum played an elaborate fraud on the CPI(M) to try to slander the organisation in a dastardly fashion.

From evidence collected it appears that Nagma Begum had duly applied to her Party unit for leave of some days to ‘go to Kashmir to attend a marriage ceremony of a relative of hers.  Biswas produced before the media the railway tickets that showed that she had gone to Kashmir accompanied by at least four other women.  She had taken part in the marriage ceremony and there are photographs to provide irrefutable proof of that fact.  She also signed as witness to the nikahnama a copy of which is with the Party.  

This was clearly a part of a larger attempt to disparage the CPI(M) and Nagma Begum had proved a willing tool in the hands of the coterie who cooked the tale up to discredit not only Bhajan Guha but also the CPI(M), said Anil Biswas.  Nagma begum has been summarily expelled from the CPI(M).  Guha has been cleared for preferring a suit in a court of law against the newspapers that had carried the malicious story.

Another form of attempt to demean and belittle the CPI(M) was found in the zonal conference of the Kolkata Corporation unit.  A small number of delegates were found indulging in a very non-Communist form of behaviour during the conference.  The Kolkata district committee immediately intervened and expelled six Party delegates from the CPI(M).

Anil Biswas pointed out that these incidents form but a miniscule minority in the stream of ongoing conferences of the CPI(M) where political discussions have been of the highest order and excellent discipline maintained all through.