Kolkata, Dec 2 (Inditop.com) The Trinamool Congress Wednesday urged a central home ministry team visiting West Bengal following political clashes to go to troubled areas for a first-hand idea of the “terror unleashed by the (ruling) Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)”.
A Trinamool delegation, led by Minister of State for Shipping Mukul Roy, met the central team at a Border Security Force (BSF) guest house and handed over a memorandum with details of political violence in the state since the April-May Lok Sabha polls.
“We requested them to visit the troubled spots in various districts to see for themselves the terror unleashed by the CPI-M. They can also talk to family members of those killed and the rape victims,” Roy told reporters.
The three-member central team, led by Additional Secretary (Home) D.R.S. Chowdhary, was originally slated to tour some districts. It appears to have decided to wind up after meetings with the state’s top administrative and police officers.
Claiming that around 150 of its supporters and workers had been killed in the violence, the Trinamool handed over to the visiting delegation a list of what it said were the victims.
“We also gave them newspaper clippings and audio-visual footage of these incidents,” Roy said.
The home ministry officials gave a patient hearing to the Trinamool leaders and promised to go through “every page of the memorandum”.
“Be assured, justice won’t be denied,” Roy quoted one of the officers as saying.
The Trinamool minister claimed his party was not demanding invocation of Article 356 – President’s Rule in West Bengal – to win assembly elections but to safeguard the people.
The Trinamool had Tuesday refused to meet the delegation protesting against the recent police assaults on opposition leader Partha Chattopadhyay near the chief minister’s chamber.
The central officers Tuesday met the state’s top officials and the ruling Left Front leaders and identified four types of “destabilising factors” in the state – the law and order problem with political connotation, violence related to the Gorkhaland movement in Darjeeling hills, dispute between the tribals and the Gorkhas in north Bengal and the Maoist problem.
A Left Front delegation led by former CPI-M MP Mohammed Salim handed over a memorandum to the team blaming the Trinamool for the clashes and alleging that the opposition party was trying to force early eledtions by invoking President’s Rule in the state.
The Left Front, which has been ruling the state for 32 years, has been involved in a series of clashes with the Trinamool for control of political turf.
