Ugly face-off in Bengal panchayat polls

CALCUTTA, April 29: The coming battle for rural Bengal between the CPI(M)-led Left Front on one side and the Trinamool Congress, BJP and the...

CALCUTTA, April 29: The coming battle for rural Bengal between the CPI(M)-led Left Front on one side and the Trinamool Congress, BJP and the Congress on the other in the May 28 panchayat elections may turn out to be more violent than previous polls in the State.

The run-up to the polls has so far seen violent clashes between the Left and the anti-Left forces in different parts of West Bengal. Almost every day, reports of such clashes and deaths of political workers pour in here. The TC chairman Pankaj Bandyopadhyay complains that 10 party workers had been killed in these clashes. The CPI(M), on the other hand, has accused both the TC and the BJP of trying to create "anarchy" in the State on the eve of the polls. Six CPI(M) activists have lost their lives in the current spell of violence.

A Trinamool Congress delegation today met Governor, A R Kidwai, and complained of large-scale "terrorisation" of Opposition workers by Marxists. The BJP has demanded deployment of paramilitary forces for the polls which,the party leaders say cannot be free and fair under police and home guards.

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The main reason for violence this time is the presence of the BJP-TC in areas where the CPI(M) hardly faced any challenges over the past 20 years.

This trend was illustrated in the violent incident at Garbeta in Midnapore district on Monday when BJP-TC activists not only attacked and looted the houses of CPI(M) workers but also made them flee the village. BJP leaders were not apologetic about the incident. They commended their workers’ "courage" and said the incident was a popular outburst against "20 years Marxist oppression".

There have also been incidents, like the one at a village in Bangaon subdivision in North 24, Parganas yesterday, in which CPI(M) activists terrorised and attacked villagers for joining the TC or the BJP. But often the clashes are over land disputes or family feuds, in which rival political groups get involved. The emergence of the TC-BJP combine as a major force in the last Lok Sabha elections hasemboldened the CPI(M)’s critics to speak up in the remotest parts of the State.

The CPI(M) admits that it is going to be a bitter fight. The reason, it says, is that the anti-Left forces want a return to the days when villages were "in the grip of vested interests". But the Opposition parties say they want to "free the panchayats from the hold of the cadre and return them to the people".

Trinamool, BJP bury differences

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The BJP central leadership’s intervention has saved the party’s understanding with Trinamool Congress for the coming panchayat polls in West Bengal. The two parties on Wednesday decided to bury the hatchetand unitedly fight the CPM-led Front in the polls.

The thaw in the frozen relations between the two parties came late last night when senior BJP leaders, Kailashpati Mishra and Vishnu Kant Shastri, met Mamata. Both parties had earlier called off the tie-up following acrimonious verbal duels between Mamata and State BJP president Tapan Sikdar and decided contest the pollsalone.

Both the BJP and the TC will now put up a common candidate against the Left Front nominee in 58,430 seats in the three-tier panchayats. "We’ll ask our members to withdraw from the contest wherever the seats are due to BJP," TC chairman, Pankaj Banerjee told The Indian Express.