Farmers Movement Archive

Squeezed tightly between TMC and BJP, Left parties jointly embark on a joint strategy in West Bengal

Finding themselves squeezed between the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and main Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the political landscape of West Bengal, the once dominant Left parties have jointly embarked on a strategy to raise voice against ruling BJP in Assam and Tripura for a multiplier effect in the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC-ruled state.This would also help in their bid to reclaim their ground in Assam and Tripura which they have lost to the BJP. The Left parties have decided to come hard on BJP for alleged violence and high-handedness of its cadre on their activists in Assam and Tripura.These parties and their frontal organisations will raise the issue through protests and other agitational programmes against recent violent incidents against people of Assam, including eviction drives conducted by the State administration at Dholpur-Gorukhuti area under Sipajhar Revenue Circle of Darrang district.“AIKS will send a delegation to Assam to visit the places of attack and killing of poor farmers by BJP government,” Hannan Mollah, national general secretary of the All India Kisan Sabha(AIKS)-affiliated to CPI(M), said.The national leaders of Left parties allege that the ruling BJP is indulging in political vendetta against their activists.Large areas of the States of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura have a cultural affinity, including linguistics. The developments in Assam and Tripura resonate with the people of West Bengal.“The public issues raised by the Left parties with regard to Assam and Tripura wil alsol ring a bell with people of West Bengal politically,” a Left leader said, and added that developments in these three State also echoes in entire north-eastern States.The political hyphenation at the three States finds empirical evidence in BJP coming to power first in Assam and Tripura before mounting a serious bid to come to power in West Bengal in the last Assembly elections in the State.Although BJP got short-changed in its ultimate goal of dethroning ruling TMC in West Bengal, it emerged as principal Opposition in the Assembly, relegating the Left parties and the Congress to the margins in the process.

The Tribune

2021-09-27

New Delhi