People's Democracy

DISRUPTION OF DELIMITATION COMMISSION WORK

Pradesh Congress Joins Hands With Trinamul

Uncivilised Behaviour In Kolkata & Other Places

B Prasant

A DESPERATELY isolated Pradesh Congress, always free of inhibitions on the score of democratic functioning, forgot the pummelling with paper balls of their leader Priya Dasmunshi at Siliguri and chose to gang up with Trinamul Congress hoods to disrupt the hearing of the delimitation commission at Kolkata on September 8.

At the prestigious Mahajati Sadan in central Kolkata, where the delimitation commission hearing was held, proceedings were disrupted within a short while with the worthies of the two Congresses, Pradesh and Trinamul, vying with each other in the dastardly act of throwing chappals and sundry other objects at the commission’s members on the dais, and shouting the most unprintable of foul abuses.

As democracy was being assiduously assaulted inside the hall by the forces of reaction, the gathered corporate media personnel were busy toting up scores about who had indulged in the most ‘effective’ of protests to close the hearing down.

Commenting on the unfortunate turn of events, CPI(M) Bengal state secretary Anil Biswas observed that the Pradesh Congress action was but an intimate part of the noisy contest of muscle going on between that outfit and the breakaway fraction known as the Trinamul Congress (from 1998) as to who would be regarded as the ‘real’ opposition in Bengal, to the CPI (M) and the Left Front. He reminded that ‘it was the Pradesh Congress that started the criminalisation of politics in Bengal back in the 1970s, and the wings of that counter-democratic line are currently busy wrecking democratic norms once again in a state that is looked upon with respect by the rest of the country as a bastion and an advanced outpost of democracy.’

Anil Biswas has called upon the people of Bengal to maintain the democratic environment and to isolate the political outfits engaged in anarchist assaults on democracy.

Interestingly enough, the corporate media, especially the Ananda Bazaar Patrika, the scion of anti-CPI (M) propaganda, ran headlines to portray the chaos-causing acts of the Trinamul Congress as a show of strength against the CPI(M), and suo motu commented, lying in the teeth, that the CPI(M) ‘was ready to send out workers to Mahajati Sadan’ in an attempt to strike panic amongst the people living in and around the area.

WIDESPREAD CONDEMNATION

A series of street corner meetings at Siliguri Township protested vehemently the uncivilised behaviour of Mamata Banerjee and her henchmen before the delimitation commission, which met there on September 5.  State secretary of the CPI(M) Anil Biswas condemned the manner in which antics were indulged in by the Trinamul Congress leadership.

This, said Biswas, ‘has effectively put to shame the entire gamut of democratic movements in Bengal which has a tradition of glory to uphold.’ Biswas continued to say that while “we in the CPI (M) and the Left Front are quite accustomed to listening to uncivilised and obscene comments from the scions of that political outfit, it was a shock for justice Kuldeep Singh who encountered such an awkward state of affairs for the first time in his career.”

It was worrying, said the CPI(M) leader, how a wrong message about the democratic movement in Bengal was apt to go to the rest of the country thanks to the irresponsible behaviour indulged in by a political outfit which ‘has gained a reputation of such patterns of behaviour.’  Anyone taking part in a democratic movement, said the CPI(M) Polit Bureau member, ‘is expected by norms of accepted behaviour to be considerate and responsible, and the CPI(M) firmly believes that such an ambience of behaviour should remain firmly rooted in this state as it has over the decades and years.’

In allowing baser emotions to have a free flow, before the delimitation commission, and especially before its chairman, justice Kuldeep Singh, Mamata Banerjee and her lackeys were intent on upsetting the procedure of delimitation itself which was on its final leg.  Depletion of popular support dogging her every day, Mamata Banerjee has for a pretty long time now expressed, in her own, unique manner, deep fear about her losing out further in terns of votes once the delimitation process gels. 

A section of the corporate media, shamelessly and in a very irresponsible manner, ran a series of ‘opinion polls’ to ‘bolster’ Trinamul Congress’s falsity of claim that the process of delimitation of electoral constituencies were “aimed at Mamata Banerjee and none else.” The media made the changes in the boundaries of Kolkata constituencies a big issue, not caring to remember that the proposal had originally come during the BJP-run NDA regime of which the Trinamul chief had been a fawning member.  Dangerously, communal contents were ‘found’ and broadly hinted at, by the same section of the big press, in the working of the delimitation commission.

All this build up had apparently enthused the ‘firebrand leader,’ of a certain kind.  On September 5, during a session of the commission at the Dinabandhu manch at Siliguri, with justice Singh present, Trinamul Congress legislators in a pre-planned move rushed to the dais and hurled abuses at justice Singh accusing him of all kinds of sins of omission and commission, and called for a halt of the proceedings, which was their original aim.

The choice of foul language in which the abuses were couched well matched the brutal gusto with which they were hurled at the commission’s members. The Trinamul chieftain orchestrated the entire sordid affair by sending instructions to her storm troopers by cell phone from a nearby hotel.

During the mêlée, a bunch of Trinamul Congress freebooters rushed up to Congress leader Priyaranjan Dasmunshi and a rightist punch up, bringing back memories of the 1970’s, appeared very much on the cards, before the Trinamul braves contented themselves with hurling rolled up bunches of various ‘documents’ they carried at him.  At one point of time, justice Singh was heard to comment that he had found the Trinamul Congress representatives loathe to give him the respect he deserved on the strength of his being the chairman of the delimitation commission and a former judge.

The condemnation that made the antics at Siliguri did not expectedly deter the Trinamul Congress at the second session of the delimitation commission at Durgapur, at the city centre, the first session at Siliguri having been declared completed by the commission.

As soon as the session commenced, several legislators of the outfit started hurling abuses at the commission’s members and then proceeded to throw very many pairs of chappals as well as well-filled bottles of water at the dais.  One leader, true to the spirit of the unruly ethos of the political outfit she belonged to, slapped down unsuspecting police personnel, and smashed up sound equipment and more.  Trinamul roughnecks outside of the hall grappled and jostled with the police who finally had to organise a push back although no arrests were made.

In a statement, Anil Biswas, condemning the Durgapur incident, said that the political outfit appeared intent on upsetting the delimitation procedure and that in doing this the outfit was keeping up its counter-democratic tradition in a suitably inglorious manner.