Some prominent members of Bengal civil society who on Thursday travelled deep into the by-lanes of Bhatpara a veritable war zone north off Kolkata compared the BJP and the Trinamool Congress with vultures preying on the innocent people.
Among those who condemned the two parties —mutually engaged in a bloody dogfight for political supremacy in Bengal — were film personalities Aparna Sen, Kaushik Sen, Chandan Sen and painter Wasim Kapoor. Others like dramatist Rudraprasad Sengupta, poet Sankha Ghosh supported them from Kolkata.
The intelligentsia’s visit to the area and their comment becomes significance against the backdrop of the ongoing bloody battle between the two parties in Bhatpara-Jagaddal-Naihati area in North 24 Parganas. The post poll violence on daily basis have claimed at least half-a-dozen lives in this area which falls under the Barrackpore parliamentary constituency from where BJP strongman Arjun Singh defeated TMC’s sitting MP Dinesh Trivedi. Incidentally Singh himself a Mamata Banerjee loyalist and a sitting MLA for years turned coat ahead of the elections after he was denied a TMC ticket by the Chief Minister.
After visiting the area for hours in a sweltering sun actor-director Aparna Sen said, “We visited the lanes and by-lanes of the area and found that the common people are the real victims of the on-going turf war between the two parties…. We spoke to the old, the young the women, the children alike and all have expressed their deep anguish and grudge against both the parties who are fighting like vultures literally for area domination.”
Kaushik Sen a multiple award winning actor who along with Aparna Sen and many other intellectual leaders of the society had taken active part in Mamata Banerjee’s Nandigram movement that eventually brought the Marxist rule down in 2011 said “the people seem to have lost confidence on the politicians and have reposed faith in the present
Police Commissioner Manoj Verma who is trying to handle the situation impartially,” reminding Verma known for his impartiality was brought into the scene very late.
Attacking both the parties for turning Bengal into a communal battle field they said “our State and particularly Bhatpara had never witnessed such communal clashes before. Here both the Hindus and Muslims have confided in us that they are completely in peace with each other but it is the politicians who are inciting communal disturbance.”
On whether they would submit a report to the administration they tended to make loaded statements saying, “we will submit a report to the Governor who is on a neutral position as also the Chief Minister who we will approach as a person different from Mamata Banerjee the chief of a political party.”
Even as the civil society walked for peace meeting hundreds of poor people at Bhatpara and the neighbouring areas, the TMC and the BJP fought yet another bloody battle at Gurap in Hooghly where alleged chanting of Jai Shri Ram by some BJP supporters, led to a skirmish between the two parties.