Post-election violence has reached terrifying proportions in West Bengal since results were declared on the evening of Sunday, 2ndMay. It was started by Trinamool Congress (TMC), the party which won the elections. The reports in the mainstream media present it only as a vendetta against those TMC supporters who have crossed over to the BJP, ignoring the violence being inflicted on many other sections.
What the mainstream media remains almost completely silent on this:
a) The fact that ruthless attacks are being perpetrated by the TMC against any part of the population that is suspected of having opposed or not having voted for the ruling party, including supporters and activists of the CPI(M), other Left parties as also the Congress and ISF, who were a part of the Samyukta Morcha and
b) The fact that the BJP, callous about the effects of violence on the people, is trying opportunistically to garner political gains out of it and is further spreading rumours and fomenting clashes which dangerously tend to get communalised from both sides.
As a result, already 12 people are dead in the state, whatever may have been their political colour. The first woman to die in the clashes was Kakoli Kshetrapal of village Nabagram, in Jamalpur, East Burdwan, an activist of CPI(M) and AIDWA, who had been on duty at the booth on behalf of the said party on election day and was hacked to death at her own home on 3rd May when she confronted armed TMC anti-socials. There are also numerous cases of left activists,including the Red Volunteers who are on the road with much-needed free services for Corona-infected people, being attacked, homes of party workers and party and trade union offices being vandalised or set on fire, on which the mainstream media is mostly silent.
The administration is completely inactive and Mamata Banerjee, who has taken oath as Chief Minister on 5th May, has done nothing to control this terror apart from making a general appeal for maintaining peace.
AIDWA strongly condemns this outbreak of unbridled terror destroying lives and property and turning into a threat against democracy and harmony among the people of this state. Hundreds of emails with the following demands will be sent to the CM:
That the state administration must take all steps forthwith to stop this violence and restore peace,
That all victims of violence and their families must have protection and compensation,
That all legal action must be taken against anti-socials who are trying to foment trouble in rural and urban areas.
