Speaking in a language that had not spoken in the last four years abelligerent left Front now has issued a blunt warning to Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee against mounting attacks on its supporters by giving her a month’s time to “restore rule of law or else our men will do the needful”.
Addressing a public rally at Mayureshwar in Birbhum district State Opposition leader Suryakanta Mishra on Monday thundered: "time has come to pay back" and gave a month's time to the Chief Minister to "act or face the consequence."
Senior leaders including Ramchandra Dome a former MP and three MlAs were on Saturday brutally assaulted and made to hold their ears and do sit-ups in public — under the threat of being stripped and filmed — while they were leading an anti-Government rally at Mayureshwar. The leaders and about half-a-dozen left supporters were currently recuperating in hospitals with broken limbs and multiple stitches.
“Under you (read Banerjee) Bengal has become a lumpen State. Here the Opposition has no leg room. Their legs are broken when they agitate. let alone the workers even the senior leaders are attacked with impunity. This cannot go for too long. We are taking note of all such attacks in our diaries for future reference,” Mishra said warning: “We give you a month’s time to restore the rule of law or else our men will take up this responsibility and do the needful.”
In loaded statement that might as well leave a message for the Election Commission of India in the run up to next year’s Assembly elections Mishra asked the huge gathering to “fasten your red flags with thicker sticks… and do the rest which do not need to tell you.”
The Opposition leader himself was attacked while he was leading a protest march in his own Narayangarh constituency in West Midnapore district last week. Subsequently similar attacks were mounted on left rallies and party offices were torched by alleged Trinamool goons at Mayureshwar, Burdwan, Hooghly, Howrah, West Midnapore, East Midnapore and elsewhere, sources said.
The 113 mass organisations of the left parties had for the past fortnight or so been organizing protest marches in all the 75,000 booths of the State.
Meanwhile, accusing the Marxists of trying to create disturbance in the Bengal ahead of the elections State Minister Firhad Hakim said, “Knowing that they have no popular backing the left is trying to create disturbance by reuniting their harmads but the State Government is committed to maintain law and order and will not allow the peace to be disturbed.”