People's Democracy

LF MLAs Submit Memo to Governor

Led by the chief whip of the government of West Bengal, Sayed Md Masih, two hundred MLAs of the Left Front met the governor of West Bengal and submitted the following memorandum on June 18, 2009.

WE, the Left Front members of the West Bengal legislative assembly are here to share with you our deep anguish and concern over the large-scale violence and terror unleashed recently in various parts of the state by the Trinamool Congress, their �Maoist� accomplices and other pre-poll allies, including the Congress party.

Right after the results of the Lok Sabha election have been out, these forces of anarchism and disorder have started a senseless journey of bloody violence all over the state. Trinamool Congress and its accomplices are misusing the democratic rights and they have been hell bent to disrupt and jeopardise the democratic atmosphere of the state.

In the last Lok Sabha elections, the Left Front in West Bengal got 2.37 per cent votes less than the vote obtained by the opposition alliance. We are not going into the details of the reasons behind such results here. However, the Left Front has accepted the peoples� mandate in true spirit of democracy.

Soon after the general elections, the state suffered from a near unprecedented natural calamity that affected both parts of West Bengal. The cyclone Aila left lakhs of people homeless, lakhs of houses were destroyed and nearly 140 lives were lost. Thousands of people are suffering from the landslide damages in the hill areas of Darjeeling. People of the state have come forward to tackle the disaster and to take on the great challenge for reconstruction and rehabilitation.

However, forgetting the cyclone-affected lakhs of people, the opposition parties in a gesture filled with inhumanity, have stood as one in their self proclaimed �punishment� mode of the people.

These brutal fascist-like attacks are let loose by the opposition in Bengal as a mark of celebration of their electoral victory.

We are reminded of the semi-fascist terror of the 1970s when nearly 1200 workers of the CPI(M) and other Left parties were brutally murdered. Comrade Hemanta Kumar Basu, chairman of All India Forward Block and veteran freedom fighter and Comrade Jiban Makity, a veteran CPI(M) state committee member were killed.

The historic 1977 elections witnessed the defeat and debacle of the authoritarian anti-people Congress rule in our state. On the day the final outcome of the assembly election results were known, Comrade Promode Dasgupta and Jyoti Basu, issued appeals repeatedly to avoid any retaliation whatsoever.

With the Left Front at the helm of affairs, nowhere in the state has the opposition leaders been under attack or killed, or their houses set on fire, or their Party offices demolished or burnt. It is in the Left Front�s period that the right of opposition has been honoured and protected. The democratic rights of the people were restored after the anti-Left forces were voted out of power.

But the contrary has been allowed this time around by the leaders of the opposition in the state. They would mutter the word �peace� but they, including even the union ministers, and MPs are inciting their followers, armed with illegal weapons, and openly instigating for violence without any provocation. A TMC MP has issued �warning� in Khejuri (a place within the constituency of a present union minister) of Purba Mednipur district that nobody would be allowed to remain to hold aloft the Red Flag. Hundreds of the Left Front workers are compelled to leave Khejuri, Party offices are burnt down or destroyed there and women are manhandled.

The TMC hoodlums and the �Maoist� extremists have been attacking police personnel and police stations on the anarchic plea of �police boycott�. They are conspiring to cripple the rule of law at gun point.

Painfully we would like to submit that so fare 53 of our comrades, 51 of the CPI(M) and 2 of AIFB have been killed by the opposition backed hoodlums from the day of Lok Sabha election notification on March 2, 2009. Our comrades are being killed every day. Thousands of our Party comrades and many others are forced to leave their homes.

As you know, the �Maoist� gunmen have already occupied Lalgarh in Paschim Medinipur district and attempting to expand their area of action. The Maoists have openly declared their intention to kill the West Bengal chief minister. We may recall that the Maoists attempted to assassinate our chief minister on November 2, 2008 at Salbani by triggering a landmine blast. He escaped unhurt all right. But the reaction of the TMC supreme was appalling. The blast was an �eye wash� and a �face-saving formula� devised by the chief minister, she said at a rally in Kolkata the following day. Such expressions are shocking to put it simply. Not only is this an attempt by the leader of the main opposition party to play down a barbaric attack on the life of the state chief minister but also to placate those who engineered it.

It is also unfortunate that a section of the corporate media is found gleeful in shamelessly supporting the attacks and the killings and the arson and the brigandage. An ugly attempt is essayed by them to pass of as �popular rage�, the planned assaults on the people. Leave apart the history of the world down the years. The media here would not even stop to recall the experience they had themselves suffered from in Bengal under the Congress rule. The section of the media that were over-joyous at the destruction of democracy in 1972, subsequently had to undergo a humiliating experience of having to spend some �prime time� behind bars during the black days of emergency.

We, the Leftists will not bow down before aggression under any circumstances. May how many lives be lost, how many damages we have to incur, we will stand solidly behind the people and fight for defending the democratic and human rights.

We condemn in unequivocal terms the terror-tactics of the TMC and its accomplices. We are happy to note that people from all walks of life have come out in protest against them. We also welcome the measures taken by the state government to contain violence perpetrated by the opposition.

We demand that union ministers representing the TMC in particular, are refrained from giving indulgence in violence in West Bengal.

We would request you to please apply your good offices for restraining those opposition leaders who are indulging in violence in contrary to democratic practices and extend necessary cooperation to the state government in all possible ways for the protection of life, property and democratic rights of the people.