Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee

Calcutta, July 16: The events at Mangalkot have caught Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee once again between compulsions of governance and the CPM’s organisational policy.

This time though, he faces a more complicated challenge. He has to take on the party’s most influential district unit if he proceeds against those guilty of the attack on the Congress MLAs.

Party sources indicate that the chief minister does want to take action — he is believed to have promised Pranab Mukherjee that he will.

But the sources also wonder if he would be allowed to get his way, especially because any action he takes might rattle the influential Burdwan unit and its most powerful face, commerce and industries minister and politburo member Nirupam Sen.

Bhattacharjee, however, has a powerful ally this time in state party secretary Biman Bose.

The internal struggle of the CPM over Mangalkot shows in the three leaders’ responses in the past 24 hours.

Bose was the only one to have reacted to the events yesterday. He condemned the incident and promised to take action against any party activist found to have been involved. His target obviously was the Burdwan unit in general and Sen in particular.

Relations between Sen and Bose soured in recent months, particularly since the CPM’s withdrawal of support to the UPA government. Sen, who is believed to be a Prakash Karat acolyte, had his personal relations with Bhattacharjee also strained over this issue.

By contrast, neither the chief minister nor Sen reacted yesterday. It was, however, learnt today that all three had discussed the statement that Bose issued to the media yesterday. But Sen was said to be unhappy over it, particularly about Bose’s veiled criticism of the Burdwan group.

A different note was introduced to the party drama today in the Assembly.

Both the chief minister and Sen condemned the incident — a shift in Sen’s case since he reportedly refused to publicly condemn the incident yesterday. He also made himself unavailable to the media yesterday.

The Burdwan group’s different response to the incident was evident in the line that the district unit secretary Amal Haldar has taken. He maintained that it was an outburst of popular anger against the killing of CPM district committee member Falguni Mukherjee by “Congress-Trinamul goons” a few weeks ago.

Haldar alleged today that some of the four accused in the murder named in the FIR had accompanied the Congress MLA team. Congress leader Manas Bhuniya denies this.

The tussle within the party showed also in a report on Mangalkot in the party organ Ganashakti. While it carried Bose’s statement condemning the incident, it also sought to justify the violence describing as an expression of popular anger against the slain leader’s murder.

Falguni Mukherjee, the slain CPM leader, hailed from the village — Dhanyarukhi — where the incident took place yesterday.

The condemnations in the Assembly — by the chief minister, Sen and the Speaker — were predictable after Bose yesterday laid out the party differences.

The chief minister’s defence of Sen on the Congress’s allegation against the latter were also routine. The differences in the party also reflect tensions and contradictory views over how to fight back the mounting Opposition challenge.

At a party programme in Calcutta two days ago, Sen had warned the cadres against resorting to counter-violence but the pressure from the grassroots and the leaders’ desperation to keep the cadres’ morale from hitting rock bottom seemed to be pulling the party in different directions.

Bhattacharjee finds himself caught in the party politics yet again. He has given in to pressure from the party on other issues, particularly on education. Mangalkot adds another dimension to it — of managing equations between different party leaders.