Patna, July 22: Cases in which courts have cracked down on four highly controversial Bihar politicians — Mohammad Shahabuddin, Prabhunath Singh, Suraj Bhan Singh and Pappu Yadav — depict a curious trend.

In all cases, in which at least a person each was murdered, the Left is intricately involved, perhaps indicating that the Communist parties have resisted criminalisation of politics in Bihar most vehemently and suffered the “excesses” of the powerful in return.

No “mainline” political party, including the BJP, is free from such “tainted” elements and this is a point the Communist parties have stressed to show that they are different from the pack.

The case in which Patna High Court ordered the shifting of RJD MP Shahabuddin to Siwan jail from hospital concerns the murder of CPI(ML) worker Munna Chaudhary. So does the case of Janata Dal (United) parliamentarian Prabhunath Singh, whom the Supreme Court has directed to surrender within 10 days.

The Supreme Court has ordered the transfer of Lok Janshakti Party’s Pappu Yadav to Patna’s Beur jail from hospital in connection with the murder of Ajit Sarkar, a popular CPM leader of Purnea, who dared to resist the entry of criminals into politics. Besides, it was on a petition moved by CPI veteran Shatrughan Prasad that Patna High Court directed that Suraj Bhan, an LJP parliamentarian, be taken into custody.

The three Left parties said they were well aware of the trend and asserted it was not strange given the class character of the other political parties.

“The non-Left parties in Bihar are competing with each other in the criminalisation of politics. The presence of such elements is eating away the innards of democracy. These history-sheeters also represent the character of the UPA and the NDA,” CPI-ML general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said.

He called upon all Left parties to unite in their struggle against criminalisation of politics.

CPM state secretary Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi said these elements were the new landlords of Bihar, who form the upper strata of peasantry represented in the “middle” parties of the “nouveau riche” of which the RJD and the LJP are good examples.

“The Left has been fighting against them since the time they were hirelings of the repressive upper caste landlords. We are their obvious targets today, as no mainline party is ready to purge such elements from its body. Their economic outlook is anti-poor and so the attacks on us are not strange,” the ageing CPM war-horse said.

CPI state secretary Jalaluddin Ansari concurred. “It is in the nature of criminals to attack the Left because they have the backing of the bourgeois parties. The Communist parties are spearheading the struggle but it will reach its conclusion only after the people come forward to take them on. The government and the Opposition connive to protect such elements using the administration and the police to suit their ends. We are proud to be a part of this fight,” he said.