Trinamool cannot beat up rivals to silence them
The continuing clashes between workers of the Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal are a cause of concern. These acts of violence must stop. They were bad enough during election time and they are bad now, after the poll is over and a new Government has assumed charge at the Centre. This is the time for both the Narendra Modi-led Union Government and the Trinamool Congress regime in West Bengal led by Ms Mamata Banerjee to work together for the larger good of the State and the country. That effort can get hit if the confrontation between the BJP and the ruling State party continues. It is clear from reports that workers of the BJP have largely been at the receiving end, and this is what has prompted the party's central delegation comprising senior members, which visited the State, to ask the Trinamool Congress to exercise refrain or face the prospect of a backlash. The Trinamool leadership has seen red over this “threat” and has countered it with even more aggression, saying it will not be cowed down. This is unfortunate. Surely the BJP has the right to warn against violence directed at its workers. This is not a matter of threat but of strong caution. But the Trinamool has taken it otherwise and has, from reports available, scaled up its violence, targeting more BJP workers within 24 hours of the BJP delegation's warning. The provocation for the latest attack was that some BJP workers were publicly celebrating the installation of Mr Modi as the country's Prime Minister. By no stretch of imagination can such a celebration be a reason for retaliation. Sadly, the Trinamool leadership is following in the footsteps of its left predecessors whose workers routinely attacked their political rivals in violent ways. The tendency persists even to this day, with left Front activists in Kerala especially continuing with their politics of violence. The people of West Bengal had given the Trinamool Congress a big mandate to govern the State and bring it out of the morass of misgovernance the left rule of decades had plunged it into. They wanted an end to political retaliations. Unfortunately, the Trinamool Congress regime has been using the mandate to exemplify its muscle power rather than to set governance right. It is hoped that better sense will prevail at least now and the cycle of violence will stop.
It appears that the Trinamool Congress has been rattled by the success of the BJP which has enhanced its presence and vote-share in the State. Although the party won just a couple of seats in the recently concluded lok Sabha election from West Bengal, it dramatically increased its vote base across the State; quite a few of its candidates secured votes many times in number to that got in the 2009 poll by the party's then candidates. While the increase in the BJP's share has come from the pie that the left earlier dominated, part of the success has been at the cost of the Trinamool as well.