With the violence graph picking up in the run-up to the Bengal panchayat polls, a former CPI(M) MlA Dilip Sarkar was on Sunday gunned down in the industrial town of Burnpur in Asansol at Burdwan district, leading the left Front to level charges of political vendetta against the ruling Trinamool Congress.
The incident took place barely 48 hours after two Bangla news channel journalists were severely beaten up by feuding Trinamool workers at Barrackpore. They were recovering at a Kolkata hospital and were not out of danger yet.
Former Marxist MlA from Barabani Dilip Sarkar was gunned down early on Sunday morning by two motorcycle-borne assailants, one of whom was a woman. Additional CP Asansol Subroto Ganguli said that no arrests had been made so far in the incident.
The 65-year-old labour leader was in-charge of at least 20 panchayats, Burdwan CPI(M) district secretary Amal Haldar said, claiming that Sarkar was bumped off to demoralise the left Front. Trinamool MlA Malay Ghatak said the murder was apolitical, adding that “it is a product of intra-party rivalry in the CPI(M).”
“The Government has ruined the Bengal in the past two years. There is anarchy everywhere. Now they are trying to block the panchayat elections as they know that if people are allowed to vote freely then they will be wiped out,” former Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said.
The police was a silent spectator to the ongoing violence “but if they do not act soon then the State people would start acting,” he said.
“At least 5,000 candidates have failed to file their nominations in the panchayat elections on account of the threats issued by the ruling party,” Bhattacharjee said. The Sunday’s murder came close on the heels of the Congress claiming that the Trinamool Congress had given Bengal its “most barbaric regime.”
Referring to the gang-rape-and-murder case at Barasat, PCC president and MP Pradip Bhattacharya said, “The Trinamool Congress is not at all serious in dealing with crimes against women. It is a barbarian regime which has sent the law and order of the State into ICU.”
Insisting that the ruling party was trying to usurp the panchayats by raw force, he said, “they have ushered in a reign of terror, so that Opposition parties can’t file nomination. Such intolerance and hooliganism can’t be tolerated in democracy.” Biman Bose, the CPI(M) State secretary, said the left Front would resort to protest rallies throughout the State on Monday against the MlA murder.