With general elections nearing, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday tended to bag an opportunity to play to the minority gallery condemning the Muzaffarnagar riots and warning those who would try to play a similar game by disturbing peace in her own State.
In what is also viewed as a sweet revenge against Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav who had reportedly ditched her during the presidential elections by refusing to back her candidate against the UPA nominee, the Chief Minister said in her State situations were never allowed to deteriorate into such levels where people had to lose their lives.
“We have all seen how many people have died in Uttar Pradesh riots. But we will not allow such things to happen in Bengal as can be seen from our previous conduct,” Banerjee told an audience at a Muslim-dominated village of Panchla in Howrah district reminding her target audience how her Government “helped the refugees of the Assam riots by giving them shelters.”
Banerjee had offered to host all the refugees — of the Assam riots — for any number of time in Bengal drawing instant applause from the minority audience.
Banerjee who expressed “deep anguish” for the victims of the UP riots iterated how dangerous riots were and how “the Bengal Government is committed to preserving the unity of the people of the State at any cost.”
Curiously, the State in the past a few years witnessed what the detractors say “localised riots” keeping the Muslims and the Hindus disunited in North 24 and South 24 Parganas.
“The culture or communalism goes against the spirit of Bengal and we would preserve it at any cost despite certain communal forces are trying to break this tradition in order to get political mileage” she had said at an earlier meeting at Basirhat a minority-dominated sub-division in North 24 Parganas.
“We will spare none who will try to provoke communal tension in Bengal” she said on Thursday even as the Opposition smelt rat in her repeated raising of the issue.
“She has been drumming up a fear psychosis among the minority in order to showcase herself as their only messiah before the polls,” CPI(M) leader Samik lahiri said, adding though there was no communal issue in the State she was needlessly trying to create an artificial tension in order to create a communal divide before the polls.
“This she is doing in order to divert the people’s mind from real issues like price rise, maladministration, goonda raj, corruption extortion by ruling party leaders in districts,” Nepaldeb Bhattacharya, another Marxist leader, said.