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STATES:
WEST BENGAL
Red Salute, Congress
With fear
of Article 356 receding, the CPI(M) is bringing toughs to the fore
By
Sumit Mitra
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| Mamata's
belligerence has put Basu on red alert |
The
political storm that was blowing across Bengal over the CPI(M) attacks
on Trinamool Congress bases has now shifted to the national capital and
has weakened considerably. Instead of the activists exchanging bullets
in rural Bengal, Jyoti Basu and Union Home Minister L.K. Advani are engaged
in an epistolary war, with the West Bengal chief minister peppering his
missive with such barbs as, "It is good that you have realised it
is essential to protect the rights of religious minorities and to maintain
communal harmony in the country." Railway Minister and Trinamool
leader Mamata Banerjee, who had been clamouring for President's rule in
West Bengal, is also subdued after Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee's remark
in Frankfurt on his way back from the US that he is "in principle"
opposed to the use of Article 356. "We want peace to be restored
in West Bengal by any means, Central intervention if necessary,"
says Mamata. That's many decibels below her shrill cry for President's
rule a few weeks back.
However,
this temporary lull is not to be mistaken for peace. Now that the ruling
Left Front is convinced that Central intervention in any form is highly
unlikely---Article 356 will call for Congress support if it is in force
for more than two months and the Congress is in no mood to oblige Mamata---it
is getting ready for a long and bloody confrontation till the assembly
elections next year. The CPI(M) has rung the curtain down on all speculation
about Basu's resignation. The 18 district committee (DC) secretaries of
the party are being summoned to the headquarters on Calcutta's Alimuddin
Street almost every week for strategy conferences. One of the DC secretaries
said on condition of anonymity, "We are about to formalise election
committees at the booth level." There are over 35,000 polling booths
spread across the state's 294 assembly constituencies. It is expected
though that the Marxists will unpack their fabled election "machinery"
pretty early on this time round because of the growing challenge from
the Trinamool-BJP combine.
There is
a new twist in the strategy though. Since the CPI(M) onslaught on Trinamool
areas in Midnapore district last month, the party has found a new hero
to showcase. He is Sushanta Ghosh, the young and aggressive minister of
state for transport credited with masterminding the armed assaults on
villages supporting the Trinamool. Ghosh was present with Basu in most
of the chief minister's recent public meetings. At one such rally organised
by the party's youth wing in Calcutta, veterans like state party Secretary
Anil Biswas had to cut short their speech as the audience wanted to hear
the message of "Comrade Sushanta Ghosh". Trinamool claims that
Ghosh's official car was found transporting weapons to the beleaguered
Keshpur area in Midnapore, earning him the epithet of "Arms Transport
Minister".
Rising
Mobocracy: The CPI(M), despite its long history of picket-line fights,
has always coveted the "bhadralok" image of its top leaders,
as distinct from the Congress which since the 1970s saw the rise of the
"Sanjay brigade", not all of whom were on the right side of
law. The top brass of the party-Biswas, Deputy Chief Minister Buddhadeb
Bhattacharya and Politburo member Biman Bose-may be ideologically bullheaded
but have no association with gangster types. The party always had its
reserves of musclemen and dons but none of the mobocrats would share a
public podium with leaders like Basu. With the ascendancy of Ghosh, the
CPI(M) seems set for a cultural revolution of its own kind.
That means
an inevitable invitation to political violence, but nobody has the power
or the will to pre-empt it. West Bengal Congress chief Pranab Mukherjee
avoids making a direct comment on whether his party would support promulgation
of Article 356 in the Lok Sabha--"let the Centre act first"--but
his party's strategy is clearly conditioned by its compulsion at the Centre
where it is in step with the Left Front in the anti-BJP battle. To keep
Basu unruffled at Writers' Building is a small price for the dividend
it hopes to earn when the national leadership question is reopened in
2004, or before that if the NDA falters.
Mamata is
certain that the secret to the CPI(M)'s success in the past elections
lies in its misuse of governmental power. "Once out of power, they
can't spread terror on polling day," she says. To get the Marxists
out of power before the elections is not easy though and is quite impossible
unless the Congress changes its strategy. With the Left determined to
hold on to power by any means, Mamata needs to fight the poll battle on
the terms set by the incumbent, not by her.
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