CPI(M) Accuses West Bengal Police of Aiding Ruling TMC's Electioneering in Panchayat Polls

Kolkata: At nearly 2 o'clock in the night, when the Kandari household was sleeping soundly in their home in the Bhaduriapara area under the Faridpur Gram Panchayat of Jalangi Block, they heard a knock at the backyard of their house. The knock awakened an elderly member of the family, and he opened the back gate of the household only to see police personnel standing in the backyard of their home. 

They entered the household without any warrant and started searching, said Anandagopal Kandari while speaking to NewsClick. They apparently entered the rooms where the women and kids were sleeping and even used torchlights in the beds, he said. The police said they were looking for Anandagopal's son, Ashish Kandari, a member of the Left-affiliated Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), Murshidabad District Secretariat. However, Ashish was not at home that night, thus avoiding being detained.

In Jalangi and Domkol blocks, more than 60 Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] activists have been put on preventive detention by the police. The activists had no previous record of malpractices or hooliganism but found themselves behind bars. CPI(M) activists claim that the fault of those detained seems to be that they are leading activists of the opposition Left party who were majorly involved in the campaigning process for the upcoming Panchayat elections.

While the police seem too inclined to put Left activists behind bars with no charges pressed in Domkol and Jalangi, they allegedly lent indirect help to the ruling Trinamool Congress cadres to beat up a CPI(M) Gram Panchayat candidate at Hingalgung in the North 24 Parganas district. 

Reports of police excesses have also surfaced in Kaksha of Burdwan West District and several parts of Burdwan East District, according to Saiyaad Hossain, CPI(M) Burdwan East District Secretary, who spoke to NewsClick.

In Birbhum, NewsClick spoke to locals who narrated how with the alleged help of the West Bengal Police, the entire election nomination process was hijacked by "TMC hooligans" in Bolpur, Nanoor, and Labhpur subdivisions. Local Left activists claimed that the police remained a mute spectator as the DCR certificates of the candidates were snatched and torn by the TMC cadres in front of them. During the nomination filing phase, even the BDO offices were allegedly encroached upon by TMC hooligans in the Birbhum District. CPI(M) activists in Birbhum accussed the police of filing cases against their party members who tried to resist the TMC's alleged hooliganism.

"The modus operandi of the West Bengal Police seems clear and simple. Wherever TMC hooligans are operating, they are acting as a support base for the TMC cadres acting as their decoys. When the TMC hooligans face obstructions, the police come to their help and arrest the resisting groups en masse. In places like Domkal and Jalangi, where the Left support base is traditionally strong, many CPI(M) activists have been taken into preventive detention, allegedly to create a level playing field for the ruling party," said Debasish Barman, a CPI(M) leader in the state.

NewsClick spoke to CPI(M) Central Committee member Dr Sujan Chakraborty, who said that "the police are being used just like a servant of the ruling party. They are crossing all norms to help the ruling party hooligans create chaos in the state. People are now understanding that the role of the police is not to maintain law and order in the state but to help the ruling party tide over crisis moments during the election phase. Common people have stopped believing in the police after seeing the partisan role of the police in the state," Chakraborty said.

MP Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, a senior advocate at the Kolkata High Court, retorted that the police are crossing all legal boundaries while operating in the state and taking a position blatantly for the ruling party ahead of the Panchayat elections.

CPI(M) state committee member and Murshidabad District Secretary Jamir Mollah told NewsClick it is a deliberate attempt to frighten the Left activists from working before the elections. Mollah contended that these preventive detentions are a new phenomenon where CPI(M) activists are being detained illegally, especially in Murshidabad district, where the Leftists are expecting favourable results in the Panchayat polls.