People's Democracy

  Bengal Civic Polls Peaceful Despite Congress-Trinamul Ploys

THE civic elections held for 79 urban local bodies all over Bengal were peaceful.  The discordant note was struck by the desperadoes of the Pradesh Congress, Trinamul Congress, and BJP who chose to run riot at every opportunity or even lack of it to create mayhem and prevent the voters from coming out and casting their ballots freely and without constraints.  The ploy failed, but not before leaving CITU worker Tarun Kotal brutally killed at Budgebudge.  Comrade Tarun was the secretary of the auto-rickshaw union affiliated to the CITU.

State secretary of the CPI(M), Anil Biswas and Left Front chairman, Biman Basu have extended their felicitations to the people for expressing their commendable level of democratic consciousness in coming out to vote in their millions and for ensuring that the polling was peaceful. 

There was an average of 75 per cent polling for the 1578 wards of 79 municipalities. People stood patiently in queue from quite early in the morning and the voting went on with unabated enthusiasm despite the scorching sun and the unseasonable humidity.

While calling the poll process a ‘sham’ the opposition parties, Pradesh Congress, Trinamul Congress, and the marginally existing BJP chose to leave nothing to chances and tried to create violence wherever they were able to. In most instances, the voters chased the miscreants away. However, things took a serious turn at Budgebudge. Here, in mid-morning, motorcycle-borne Pradesh Congress goons, frustrated at the inability to capture booths for rigging the polls, vent their ire at a camp office of the CPI(M). Comrade Tarun Kotal who was near the camp was struck full in the face by the two powerful explosives that the thugs hurled at the camp before hurtling away.

Comrade Tarun and two CPI(M) workers, Prasenjit Mal and Sujoy Roy fell down, severely wounded and bleeding. Comrade Tarun died before help could arrive, parts of his body simply blown away.  The two Party workers are battling for their lives in a nearby hospital.  A 12-hour bandh was later observed in Budgebudge to protest against the dastardly killing.

In all, the police took into custody 42 opposition rogues for indulging in violence on the poll day and seized from them revolvers, pistols, shot guns, sharp and cutting weapons, and bullets caches.

The state of the art internecine fighting among the opposition Pradesh Congress and Trinamul Congress could be seen in districts of north and central Bengal while in a large number of booths, the opposition even while fighting as a combined platform of opportunism, could not field any election agents. 

Queried by the media on this score, Anil Biswas said that the matter reflected the state of affairs of the opposition in Bengal.  Biswas also pointed out that while calling the voting a ‘sham’ the Pradesh Congress and the Trinamul Congress had nevertheless expressed high hopes of ‘winning the polls hands down.’  This, said Anil Biswas, was an excellent example of the kind of embryonic mindlessness that plagued the Bengal opposition when it came to talking concretely of poll participation, and not poll violence.  They, as Biswas put it, exceeded in the latter but were a failure at the former. (BP)