People's Democracy

                                                                                    Post-Poll Violence Unleashed

Trinamul & Pradesh Congresses

 Prasant

IN what Bengal CPI(M) secretary Biman Basu calls a �planned violence, born out of sheer political frustration,� the two Congresses, singly and joining bloodied hands took the life of three more CPI(M) workers in Murshidabad alone. In all, 13 CPI(M) workers have been martyred in this district from the poll day.

We have a list (see accompanying table) of all the CPI(M) workers killed until date from the announcement of the poll schedule of the seventh Panchayat general elections in Bengal.

The attackers in Murshidabad were anti-social elements of ill-known, who are in the pay and protection of the district committee of the Pradesh congress, and led by the notorious history-sheeter Adhir Chaudhuri. The Trinamul anti-socials organised the vicious attacks in Birbhum.

One of the attackers at Murshidabad, too, also fell when a bag of crude and freshly made bombs he was carrying and swinging vigorously on his way to another attack on a nearby CPI(M) office at Reginagar, burst out of inadvertence and careless braggadocio, blowing him apart.

TRAGEDY

A huge tragedy unfolded, again in Murshidabad, at Salar, when a notorious bomb-maker of the Pradesh Congress allowed his small daughter Millie, to handle the crude bombs he was putting �finishing touches to,� and one of them exploded with a deafening bang, and tore her soft little body apart. The Pradesh Congress culture then came streaming through the blood that had been shed when the father claimed raucously in front of rolling TV cameras that the bomb was �thrown at him by CPI(M) workers and had gone awry in direction.�

Can political loyalty of the wrong kind distort even the tenderness of parenthood? We remain stunned as the footage is played with vicarious pleasure over and over again in the local TV channels with the dulcet voice-overs duly blaming the CPI(M) for the irreplaceably sad human tragedy.

Of the two dozen CPI(M) workers injured in the planned attacks of the Pradesh Congress assailants was a college teacher who fights for his life after having been entrapped on his way home, dragged out from the vehicle in which he was travelling, and hit on the head and shot in the neck, twice, and then left for dead. The various teachers� organisations at the state and the all-India level have strongly condemned the murderous assault.

VILLAGERS  RESIST

In the red clay district of Birbhum, Trinamul Congress ran into stiff opposition of the villagers seasoned, as the latter have become, resisting attacks from the Maoists, the Jharkhandists, and their underlings in the Trinamul Congress and the BJP. While there was no killing per se, the CPI(M) did have to witness no less than 20 workers laid low with near-mortal injuries from mostly gunshot wounds.

The corporate media of both sorts � the print and the audio-visual- are engaged in creating a wave of panic amongst the people in general by talking somewhat wildly, which is regrettable, and irresponsibly, which is expected, about the �coming of more killings in the weeks to come.� The Hindustan Times front-paged a piece that had a grand run of misquoting official figures and seeking to put in a drizzle of misinformation to confuse the reading public.

MUDDLED

FIGURES

In �quoting� the officialdom, especially in trying to counterpose the district officials� alleged reports against those of the centrally-located police officers headquartered in Kolkata, the reporter tries to be too clever by half by not putting the toll in context, muddling post-poll killings with pre-poll violence, and misplacing (mistaking?) one location for another and going on and on, ad nauseum, about �CPI (M) violence.�

The same paper, and this is the state of coordination of anti-CPI (M) ploy in the ranks of the highly-paid and highly-motivated anti-Communist wielders of the PC keyboards, Biman Basu is quoted in full saying that close to 80 per cent of those involved at the receiving end of attacks were CPI(M) leaders and workers. What was that, again, about the old adage that �truth will be out?�

Briefing the media later in the evening of May 20, Biman Basu called upon all concerned, politically affiliated or not, to maintain peace and amity. Without peace, asked the senior CPI(M) leader, could the work of harvesting of the boro crops, the bustle of tending to the flower beds, and the caring growth of vegetables, be resumed in the countryside, a vast stretch so representative of the green that is Bengal?

He was particularly emphatical on the role that the largest political party of Bengal, the CPI(M), and the Left Front, must emote in making the post-poll celebratory mood carefully modulated by as little boisterousness as possible � �feelings must not be ruffled, comrades, anywhere� were his exact words to the CPI(M) workers. He also reminded the opposition of their responsibility in maintaining amity and harmony out in the countryside � whatever the poll outcome might be.

Throughout the poll process, the Trinamul Congress supremo would not meet her beloved corporate media while the Pradesh Congress satraps would harp endlessly on the strange theme of �rigging� during counting � and would not deign to explain how that could be a possibility!