Left leaders complain to CEC,demand steps for fair polls in WB

Left leaders from West Bengal on Thursady 29th December asked Election Commission to take speedy steps to ensure free and fair general elections in the state, charging the ruling Trinamool Congress with organising attacks on and intimidating Left activists and indulging in poll malpractices.

 Seeking the EC's urgent intervention to restore normalcy in affected areas across the state, they said they informed the poll panel of their "grave apprehension of another all-out attack before the ensuing Lok Sabha elections".  The leaders, including Sitaram Yechury, Biman Basu (CPI- M), Kshiti Goswami (former state minister and RSP leader), Barun Mukherjee (Forward Bloc) and Swapan Banerjee (CPI), met Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath here and submitted amemorandum detailing the "fast deteriorating" law and order situation in the state.

The Left Front alleged that 142 of its cadres were killed since Trinamool Congress took over in West Bengal in 2011, over 7,500 grievously injured and hospitalised in these attacks, 47,000 evicted from their homes, 5,547 houses of supporters and 2,470 party offices ransacked, burnt down and looted.

The parties alleged that incidents of rape and molestation of women supporters were 1,865, while over 27,000 cases were of eviction of poor share-croppers, who had got land in the land reforms process carried out earlier by the Left Front.

"If the general elections are held in such circumstances, as witnessed in the recent panchayat and local bodies' polls, then free and fair elections in 2014 is impossible," Left Front Chairman Biman Basu said.  "Trinamool is doing everything to ensure that no opposition voice is ever heard in West Bengal," Mukherjee said, while Goswami accused Trinamool Congress of "butchering democratic traditions" in the state.

Yechury said the Election Commission's attention was also drawn towards the "improper and partisan" attitude of the State Election Commission, which "appears to be functioning under intimidation by the state government and hence unable to discharge its proper role as an independent body."

The issue of 'paid news' and instances of Trinamool Congress' "brazen" attempts to focus on their candidates was also raised through the memorandum. The Left parties had on 18th December organised a day-long dharna here and met President Pranab Mukherjee to discuss the prevailing situation in West Bengal.

The Battle for Revival of Democracy in West Bengal ; Left Front to Wage All-Out Struggle

Democracy is under attack in the dictatorial custody of the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal. Protesting this reign of terror the leftists hit the roads of the union capital today. The protest rally and mass meeting was convened at the Jantar Mantar while the leftist Members of the Parliament and Rajyasabha avowed their sentence of rejection to the autocratic government of West Bengal inside the respective houses. The meeting witnessed a large gathering of those people who had been forcefully invaded from their shelters by the Trinamool criminals and were compelled to manage their livelihood with makeshifts in Delhi. Today’s movement made them realize that more this struggle of revival of democratic rights gets strengthened; the chances of their returning home get even brighter. In this state the people are barred to even speak up their rights, as for now in West Bengal every single day is accompanied by a spectrum of crimes starting from murders, rapes to accusing the oppositions with forged cases. Even in the highest house of democracy in the state, in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly the oppositions are facing a cut to place their views and words.

Like all other days, there were many mass meetings and conventions which were being held at the Jantar Mantar, New Delhi. Somehow, the one that the West Bengal Left Front committee had convened and organized for was the prime point of discussions and concern. The Left Front leadership was very keen to make the big picture turn visible to others that the terror and anarchic installations those are growing in numbers day by day are not demonstrations of any discreet degenerative turn outs which are only applicable for West Bengal, the same imply for rest of the country too. The ban on democracy in West Bengal is not a single standing shameful instance of an Indian Union state in the lot. They opined that to resist this force the left, democratic and most necessarily the secular forces must join hands. There were a series of posters, banners, placards and all displaying selections from the plenty of occurrences, starting from all-stretched atrocities against women, growth in killings of older and senior citizens, the barbarian egotism of the rulers that made the state witness bloodbath in panchayat elections and the state created catastrophe of growing number of farmer suicides. Those dealt examples of winning candidates who got murdered by Trinamool goons to the 9 thousand 213 acres of land that got evicted by the ruling party agents and the account of forged cases against the oppositions that have already picked at 70 thousands and on. The names of 142 martyrs of Left Front were inscribed in the backdrop of the meeting rostrum.

The sessions of West Bengal legislative assembly has witnessed a sharp decrease from about 100 to down to 40 days of session per annum comparing with the earlier Left Front governments to the new ruling order, said the Chairman of the Left Front, West Bengal committee Biman Bose presiding over the meeting. He pointed out the shameful incident of attack on ex-minister Sri Naren De and how that incident speaks for the whole situation in West Bengal where the disaster is looming larger and larger day by day upon democracy. Leaders, elected representatives of the Left Front to the legislative houses were present in large number in this meeting and they too talked about various odds of the regime of anarchy in West Bengal.  The General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Prakash Karat said that attacks can never have the last word, popular resistance and protest would inevitably prevail. In the battle of human dignity the revival of democracy in West Bengal is inescapable; the lefts are ready to wage whatever it takes to restore that

US Treatment Outrageous

 

The arrest and the treatment meted out to the Indian Deputy Consul General in New York, Devyani Khobragade, by the American authorities was outrageous. It indicates how the US administration views India and its diplomats.

This is not the first time that an Indian diplomat has faced  such indignity.  Three years ago, the Indian Ambassador to the US, Meera Shankar, was subjected to a pat down security search at a US airport.  A similar situation occurred with the India’s Permanent Representative at the United Nations. 

The Indian government has to take firm reciprocal measures with regard to US diplomatic missions here.  Further, the Indian government should get an assurance from the United States that it will  adhere to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations with regard to our diplomatic personnel in the United States.