People's Democracy

WEST BENGAL

Trinamul Conspiracy Of A Bandh Falls Through

B Prasant

THERE was comprehensive and spontaneous rejection of the Trinamul Congress-called, Pradesh Congress-supported bandh on October 9 by the people of Bengal. Wanton violence came to the rescue of the anti-development outfits that sponsored the bandh (blockade) in that they could cry themselves hoarse over ‘30,000 arrests having been made by the police’ and thus try, albeit fail, to save face. 

Left Front chairman Biman Basu commented to say that those arrested (the actual figure was much less, at 6211) were not taken into custody from their residences or places of work. They were apprehended because they were found engaged in subversive activities.

Overhead traction lines of local trains were short-circuited. Offices were blockaded by armed hooligans. No less than 10 drivers and conductors of state transport buses were severely beaten up (several are in hospital being treated for head injuries). Cabin men of trains and bus crew have been kidnapped and bashed up. Keys to the Railway track-changers were just stolen and taken away stranding train movement. Three state transport buses were completely wrecked. Private vehicles were not spared.

However, life never deviated from normalcy in Bengal. Transport plied as usual. There was normal attendance in offices across Bengal. Industrial belts totally rejected the bandh with attendance figure exceeding 95 per cent. The Kolkata and Haldia dock and port, the Kolkata metro, and the Kolkata airport remained normal. Generation of power at 1712 MW (the average for the month so far) showed that the wheels of production kept moving. Tea gardens hummed with activity as did the jute mills. In Singur, consent letters were received from farmers for land transfers and cheques handed out on the bandh day.

Fearful predictions by the leadership of the two Congresses notwithstanding, there was no clash with CPI(M) and Left Front workers who went about collecting funds for flood relief. “We are different from the Trinamul Congress and the Pradesh Congress and we do not go about launching physical assaults as they do,” was how Biman Basu put it.

However, fear did play a part in the hearts and minds of the peace-loving denizens of Kolkata in particular and initially people were a trifle uneasy about the bandh call, Biman Basu pointed out.

At the end of the day, what was the bandh about is a question that has kept the people puzzled. Initially, the Trinamul Congress chieftain said the bandh was against the industrialisation of Singur. With Biman Basu leading a pungent attack on the score that her outfit would not like to see Singur develop, the Trinamul supremo quickly changed track. The bandh is actually, she said, in protest against a conspiracy by the police to kill her. Her acolytes, both in her party and the Pradesh Congress took up the outlandish and ridiculous cry raucously. The crass failure that the bandh was should communicate a lesson of sorts to Mamata Banerjee and her admirers in the Pradesh Congress.

STATEWIDE CONDEMNATION 

People across the social strata have come forward to castigate the Trinamul Congress and its minor hangers-on like the SUCI for calling a bandh against employment generation. The bandh was supported by the various ultra-left groups as well. The Pradesh Congress swung uncertainly and in an almost comic fashion between providing moral support to the bandh and coming out in active support. 

The running battle between the group led by the Pradesh Congress president and the one led by a Mamata-wooing union minister continues with monotonous regularity over any and every topic that comes up before the Pradesh Congress.

The crux of the larger issue was that the bandh has been declared by the Trinamul Congress chief as against the coming up of the automobile manufacturing unit at Singur in Hooghly. Having identified the ‘issue,’ the outfit was not able to veer towards ‘police torture on our beloved leader,’ in any manner since that incident had already been proved to be a tissue of lies, thanks to the inadvertent evidence presented through the cameras of the otherwise anti-CPI(M) audio-visual media.

The Mamata Banerjee brigade, at least what remains of it on this particular issue, was embarrassed even more by CPI(M) leader Biman Basu’s recent pointed query. Biman Basu noted that several groups of industrialists like the Bansals, the Todis, the Jains and the Guptas have purchased nearly 83 acres of fertile land at Singur from farmers and that they are now demanding ‘adequate’ compensation from the state Left Front government. 

Biman Basu then raised the very legitimate question as to the reason why the Trinamul Congress and its lackeys chose to remain tight-lipped about and desist from protesting this takeover of agricultural land while crying themselves hoarse against the coming up of the automotive factory. There appeared but one possibility. The Trinamul Congress was in league with the industrialists who purchased the plots and would not dare rub them up the wrong way.

When the question was put to a Trinamul Congress leader (who had once doubted the Trinamul Congress chieftain’s sanity), he was extremely discomfited and instead of denying the link muttered almost in a soliloquy whether names of any Trinamul Congress men had been discovered in the deal.

Industries minister Nirupam Sen has already mentioned that the industrialists are not residents of Singur and they have no intention of undertaking farming work. It is not difficult to realise that they purchased the land plots for a different reason. Indeed, construction work for the projected private sector schemes on these plots has gone on apace with nary a peep out of the Trinamul Congress.

In the meanwhile, large processions were taken out by the CPI(M) and by mass organisations of workers, kisans, women, youth, students, employees, teachers, to condemn the bandh call and unmask the conspiratorial moves of the Trinamul Congress and the Pradesh Congress against the process of industrialisation in Bengal. 

Conventions were held. Leaflets have been distributed in their lakhs making the people aware of the ploy of the Trinamul Congress by calling a bandh without a viable issue. 

Earlier, Biman Basu had asserted that the mass of the people of Bengal shall foil all attempts by the Trinamul Congress and its running mates to organise an anti-development bandh, a bandh of political conspiracy against a popularly-elected state Left Front government. He said this while speaking to the representatives of the Kolkata media at the Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan later in the afternoon of October 8.

Biman Basu expressed surprise that 16 districts of the state were reeling from the after-effects of flooding. All-out efforts were made by the units of the CPI(M) and the Left Front government to provide relief to the affected people and to ensure they had supply of cooked food, and shelters above their heads. The Trinamul Congress in an inhuman gesture stoutly and obstinately would ignore the call for withdrawal of the bandh, or at least its deferment.

Biman Basu said that a vicious campaign of misinformation was circulated with malicious intent by the Trinamul Congress regarding the CPI(M)’s relief efforts. It has been touted that ‘CPI(M) cadres would take to the streets on October 9 to foil the bandh.’ Biman Basu said as part of a pre-determined programme CPI(M) workers would collect funds for flood relief over October 8-9. The programme has nothing to do with efforts to foil the bandh. People would foil the bandh on their own by keeping life normal on October 9, said Biman Basu. 

Flood relief work would go on as usual, said the Left Front chairman who went on to add that the bandh while seeking to hamper interests of the flood victims was also anti-development. The Trinamul Congress has already declared that they would not allow industry to come up in Singur.

Biman Basu pointed to the violent character of the Trinamul Congress’s actions and said that by way of observing a ‘victory celebration’ recently at Bongaon, where they had retained the assembly seat, goons of that outfit murdered two CPI(M) supporters. Elsewhere, the Trinamul Congress joined hands with the Pradesh Congress in Nadia recently and killed two more CPI(M) workers when the latter protested against corrupt practices evident in the distribution of relief materials by the local Pradesh Congress-run gram panchayat.