CM Mamata playing divisive politics in tribal zone: Adhikari

With the next year’s Assembly election barely 4-5 months away, Bengal Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari on Sunday leveled fresh charges on Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress for playing divisive politics in the tribal belt of Jangalmahal, setting one tribal community against the other.

Addressing a large rally at Gopiballavpur off Jhargram police district Adhikari said “once the entire jangalmahal was untied socially, culturally or politically but now Mamata Banerjee has been dividing the people for her narrow political interests,” alleging how “on the one hand her Government has been recommending granting of tribal status to the Kurmi community and on the other it has been instigating the Santhals, Mundas and other communities to resist such move causing a rift between the two sides so that her own political interests are served.”

Alleging that all belonged to the tribal population were now being looted by the TMC leaders, Adhikari said, “we wanted a genuine Parivartan (political change) in Bengal when we were fighting against the Left Front Government but in reality what has taken place in the name of a political change is sham today lakhs of youth are going out of Bengal as migrant workers this is not what we wanted today river, and forest property are being indiscriminately looted by the TMC leaders in the name of sand mining.”

Accusing the Government of running a police raj, Adhikari reminded, “though most of the Left leaders were good and honest in the closing years of their rule, they had unleashed a police raj … today this Government too has started doing so, this is the signs of its collapse.”

Adhikari also alleged that the Chief Minister was not allowing the central schemes to be implemented in Bengal. “The schemes that are being conceived and funded by the Centre are being hijacked by the State Government and are being run in its name in other cases, they are not allowing the central schemes like Ayushman Bharat and Kisan Sanman Nidhi to be implemented but we promise to implement all these schemes when we come to power,” Adhikari, who earlier accused the State Government of blocking appointments in six lakh sanctioned Government posts, said. 

Adhikari also accused the TMC Government of patronising the perpetrators of Howrah-Mumabi Gyaneshwari Express accident in 2010 that resulted in more than 125 deaths.

In what the Congress and other political parties promptly lapped up as an issue demanding an immediate inquiry into the Gyaneshwari case, Adhikari made circuitous remarks that Jangalamahal leaders like Chatradhar Mahato, whose men had “murdered more than 100 people in the Gyaneshwari case,” were being patronised by the TMC.

While the TMC promptly refuted the allegations, Pradesh Congress leader Soumya Aich Roy demanded an “immediate inquiry into the allegations saying, “the statement is being made by none other than a person but Suvendu Adhikari who has been the most important leader after Mamata Banerjee in the anti-Left movement also he was the most important minister after the Chief Minister in the State Cabinet before joining the BJP so his statements should be taken up seriously and an inquiry be started afresh into the Gyaneshwari accident.”

Adhikari also alleged that the Chief Minister was not allowing the central schemes to be implemented in Bengal