Abhishek Banerjee on Sunday invoked the Battle of Stalingrad — one of modern history's most decisive moments — to draw parallels with the battle royale for the Bengal Assembly this summer.

Presumably identifying Trinamool Congress under his aunt, chief minister Mamata Banerjee with the Soviet Red Army under Joseph Stalin, and the BJP under Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler, Abhishek said history would be repeated here, referring to the 200-day war in 1942-43 fought along the Volga river that changed the course of the World War II.

In his belligerent criticism of the saffron regime and the Election Commission of India over the preliminary "final" list post-SIR in Bengal, Abhishek said in a news meet: "There is no reason to mistake our courtesy for weakness. The language you understand, we know how to respond to everything you throw at us in that very language.... Such audacity... people's lives have no value for them.... The people will judge in the future."

He alleged that the "target" of deleting over one crore voters was decided long before the SIR began.

"Those whom you have kept 'under adjudication', in six months those people will put the (BJP-led) Centre under adjudication. Bengal will show what it is capable of," said Abhishek.

"Remember the Battle of Stalingrad? That will be repeated here," he said, framing the state election as a civilisational standoff.

The 38-year-old Diamond Harbour MP was referring to what Left and liberals from around the world venerate as the most momentous triumph over fascism, as Hitler’s mighty Sixth Army and Army Group B met their end in the ruins of Stalingrad (now Volgograd), an industrial hub by the Volga. The Red Army, spearheaded by the military genius of Georgy Zhukov, Aleksandr Vasilevsky and Vasily Chuikov, successfully encircled and annihilated the German 6th Army, turning the tide of the war.

The savagery of the fighting was unprecedented, with an estimated casualty count of three million. The subsequent German surrender on February 2, 1943, revised the stakes of World War II, and paved the path for the Axis defeat.

The Red Army victory drafted the blueprint for a fascist-free Europe.

Historian Kanad Sinha said that the Battle of Stalingrad stopped the offensive and expansionist momentum of the Third Reich. Abhishek's imagery, consistent with Trinamool's portrayal of the BJP as fascist, was apt, he said. However, Sinha noted: "It is interesting to see a historical allusion to a major episode in the hero-lore of the Left in the statement of a Trinamool leader."

"Stalingrad had done the unthinkable — it had brought the USSR to the same table with the US and the UK for the greater cause of defeating fascism. If the BJP is defeated this time, will it finally bring the three forces of the INDIA bloc, Trinamool, the Left, and the Congress, always at each other's throats in Bengal, together for 'the greater good'?" asked Sinha.

Political scientist Subhamoy Maitra said that Trinamool's supreme leadership had apparently been "heeding the counsel of some extremely intelligent people, who are the very best at setting political narratives in Bengal now".

"They are able to make optimal use of every political opportunity — the SIR, for instance — to spin narratives and divert attention from other raging issues, such as corruption or criminalisation or economic conditions," he said.
"The sad thing is that they are not Leftists in the true sense, they are successfully peddling Leftism. But it should help them in the election."

The BJP's Rahul Sinha said Trinamool was resorting to such "gimmicks" in its "feeble" attempts to stop its "inevitable" defeat.

CPM central committee member Sujan Chakraborty said such a reference from Trinamool was sacrilegious, because while the BJP was comparable to Nazi Germany, Mamata's regime was the equivalent of Fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini. "Abhishek is demeaning the glorious history of the Red Army in World War II and the Battle of Stalingrad. Trinamool aids the RSS, and they are in a secret entente with the BJP," he claimed.

CM's Friday dharna

Abhishek announced that Mamata would sit in a dharna on Friday from 2pm at Esplanade, against the allegedly arbitrary, exclusionary, opaque SIR in poll-bound Bengal. He again claimed CEC Gyanesh Kumar was working for the BJP.