The Suvendu Adhikari government has offered a double-dose medicine to treat a near-century-old malaise that has been at the nucleus of Bengal’s political life: The close proximity and patronage that anti-socials have been accustomed to from the political powers that be in the state.
Under successive governments of different political hues, local goons have been the go-to group for political leaders to “sort out” differences with political rivals, outside or even within the party. Bengal’s tallest pre-Independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose also apparently sent his “men” to intimidate Hindu Mahasabha workers during their meetings.
The goons, men from the impoverished slums where a life of crime was the easiest source of sustenance, came in handy for politicians. During the Congress days and later Left Front rule, leaders in Calcutta and elsewhere had their handpicked foot soldiers to do the dirty work.
Over the years, the line distinguishing these foot soldiers from the elected representatives got blurred.
An instance is the violence at Garden Reach’s Harimohan Ghose College over nominations for students’ body elections that left a police officer dead in February 2013.
Among those accused of instigating that violence, two were Trinamool councillors and another accused’s father was a former councillor and wife a member of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation when the incident took place.
Just two months later another Trinamool councillor was arrested for leading an attack on the prestigious Presidency University.
The West Bengal Public Safety and Control of Anti-Social Activities Bill, 2026 and the West Bengal Maintenance of Public Order (Amendment) that the Suvendu Adhikari government has passed in the Assembly allows the government to identify “goondas”, put them in detention for 12 months and auction off their properties and assets as compensation for damage to private and public property.
“The existing acts don’t make criminals liable for damage to public or private property or force them to pay compensation,” chief minister Adhikari, who also holds the home portfolio, said in the Assembly.
“Why has this law become necessary? Because the state has a duty to protect public and private property during riots,unlawful assemblies, violent protests and other law-and-order disturbances.”
Retired IPS officer Adhir Sharma, who had served in Bengal in different positions, told The Telegraph Online that previous governments in Bengal were averse to using preventive detention through other central laws.
“Successive governments in Bengal – the Left Front government through the TADA (Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act) and POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) and the Trinamool Congress thereafter – showed a marked reluctance to invoke the harshest preventive-detention and anti-terror statutes,” Sharma said.
“West Bengal was among the states with negligible TADA invocation between 1985 and 1995 and the Left Front government publicly declined to operationalise POTA after its enactment in 2002, setting it apart from states like Punjab, Assam and Gujarat.”
Sharma said the Left Front and the Trinamool government in its early days had used the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act with other provisions under the erstwhile Indian Penal Code on waging war against the state and sedition.
“This pattern reflects a consistent institutional caution in Bengal towards the state’s most coercive security legislation – a caution not always mirrored in its approach to ordinary policing,” Sharma said.
States like Rajasthan (the Rajasthan Prevention of Anti-Social Activities, Bill, 2003), Maharashtra (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crimes Act, MCOCA) and Uttar Pradesh (the Uttar Pradesh Gangsters and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act) introduced stringent laws to maintain law and order.
Bengal’s former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee too was in favour of a law on similar lines but backed out after pressure from within the Left Front.
The Rajasthan Bill when introduced in the Assembly by then home minister Gulab Singh Shaktawat did not face any objection from the Opposition.
In the Bengal Assembly, the Indian Secular Front lawmaker Nawsad Siddiqui has sought clarifications from the government.
“The government should make it clear whether this Act would be used to silence agitations by students or political leaders. The government should also clarify whether there is any safeguard in case officials misuse the act,” Siddiqui said.
A former DGP of Uttar Pradesh sounded a note of caution.
“Too much power [in the hands of the police] gives rise to the fear of misuse and selective use,” he told The Telegraph Online, requesting anonymity.
In the midst of the Durga Puja festivities in 2024 – barely two months before a post-graduate trainee doctor was raped and murdered at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Calcutta – 29 protesters were picked up by cops under the West Bengal Maintenance of Public Order, much before the Bengal Assembly amended the law.
“They could have been imprisoned for 10 years. The present government has introduced a provision for auctioning properties of those convicted. I am not scared about the law. I am scared about its misuse,” Calcutta High Court senior advocate Jayanta Narayan Chattopadhyay told The Telegraph Online.
“Police should not be given so much freedom. A 12-month preventive arrest is open to misuse. There should have been some safeguards.”
Chattopadhyay’s apprehension stems from cases slapped against political leaders and activists from rival parties by the previous governments, especially the Trinamool government.
“There is a provision for looking into precedents from seven years. Countless people have been slapped with cases under the Arms Act, the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. These pending cases too could go against a person whom the state considers a goonda,” Chattopadhyay said.
Six BJP leaders had in 2020 approached the Supreme Court alleging the Bengal government under Mamata Banerjee had targeted them. Arjun Singh, now a minister in the Suvendu Adhikari government, had claimed 64 cases were filed against him, nine against his son Pawan and 12 against a nephew of his.
“Any government, especially a new government, wants to be visible, be active,” said Subhamoy Maitra, a Calcutta-based political analyst. “The arrest of goons can be displayed, but one cannot show people are safe. These laws will keep the core voter base of the BJP happy.
“This appears to be a largely symbolic act,” he added. “There are existing laws to keep goons behind bars. It has to be seen whether these laws would be used to prevent Opposition leaders from carrying out protests against the government.”