CPM politburo coordinator Prakash Karat said on Tuesday that the RSS had identified Bengal to turn it into a hub of its communal programme for eastern India and blamed the Trinamool Congress for facilitating the rise of the saffron force in
the state.
“The RSS has a plan to turn Bengal into a hub of Hindu communal forces for the eastern zone. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat recently did a 10-day tour of Bengal.
He stayed here for 10 days. He did not come here to hold prayers in Bengal. He had come here to decide on how to make RSS stronger, what type of communal agenda they would take to the people to divide them, engineer tension between Hindus and Muslims and provoke riots,” Karat said and added that the CPM would intensify its struggle against the communal forces in the state.
During his 10-day visit, Bhagwat toured 12 districts in south Bengal and though the RSS did not officially acknowledge any connection between the Sangh chief’s visit and next year’s elections, during his stay he engaged with regional leaders, grassroots activists and influential district figures who could play a role in mobilising voters in BJP’s favour.
CPM politburo coordinator Prakash Karat addresses the rally at Dankuni on Tuesday
The politburo coordinator was speaking at the rally in Hooghly’s Dankuni held to mark the conclusion of the four-day 27th state conference of the CPM that re-elected Md Salim as the party’s state secretary for a second term. The conference also elected an 81-member state committee of which 15 are women.
Blaming Trinamool for allegedly laying the ground for the entry of the saffron in the state, Karat reminded supporters about Bengal’s tradition of maintaining communal harmony.
“...because of the Left... Bengal had the glorious tradition of being a hub of communal harmony. Communal forces — be it the Hindu or the Muslim — did not get a chance to have a foothold in Bengal. But now under the Trinamool Congress government ...the BJP and the RSS are trying to spread their communal ideology and politics in the state,” the veteran leader said.
Mincing no words, Karat said the policies and actions of the Narendra Modi government had exposed the “class character” of the BJP as it was not concerned with the common man but with the rich few.
“When they (the BJP) talk about Hindus, they do not speak about the common Hindu — the farmers, the workers. They talk about the big capitalists of our country, the Adanis and the Ambanis for whom they run the government. If the BJP comes to power here, it will let these capitalists loot the state,” Karat said.
Although Karat and later Salim set the tone for CPM’s future programmes, two women leaders — Debalina Hembram and Minakshi Mukherjee — lifted the mood of the crowd as their speeches were reciprocated by loud applause from the impressive gathering at the Dankuni football ground.
Hembram in her speech — which was a mix of Bengali and Santhali — attacked the Trinamool and the BJP for being hand-in-glove on issues of corruption. She said the state had enough of the TMC “misrule” and the government was “not doing any favour to the people” by running schemes like Lakshmir Bhandar.
“They are not paying from their pockets. It is the hard-earned money of the people,” Hembram said.
However, it was left to Minakshi to bring in cricketing parallels and tell the crowd that it was a “matter of time” before the Left played well enough to win the “match”.
“Watch the Sunday match between India and Pakistan. It was a brilliant game... India won. For a while Virat Kohli was off-form, he was not among runs. He got his century and ensured India’s victory. It went on to prove that form is temporary and class is permanent. The one with class, the one with principle and ideology, the one who will fight, will win. So let’s come together to take the field and defeat the corrupt Trinamool and the divisive BJP-RSS,” Minakshi said to a loud cheer from the ground.
The meeting ended with Salim’s speech in which he repeated his pledge to organise movements that would not “let the Mamata Banerjee government sleep”.
