Left to take Mamata complaint to PM

Left to take Mamata complaint to PM
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

CALCUTTA, JULY 23: A team of nine Left Front MPs who have returned from Midnapore district on Sunday, have decided to take the matter of Railway Minister and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee ``role of inciting violence'', to the President and the Prime Minister.

The team that visited several villages in Sabang, Pingla and Keshpur, told reporters that ``the Trinamool Congress activists were spreading violence by attacking the innocent villagers in an attempt to to win them over through muscle power.''

Biplab Dasgupta, the CPI(M)'s Rajya Sabha MP, told reporters that the Trinamool Congress, which had won the recent Panskura Lok Sabha by-election, was trying to bring back the horrifying days of the 1970s. ``Unless the trend is checked, fascism will return to West Bengal,'' Dasgupta added. ``The last phase of violence between 11th to 20th of this month had left hundreds homeless,'' he said.

Not pinning the blame for on Mamata alone, Dasgupta said:``It all started with the conception of Trinamool Congress two years ago.'' He had been asked if Mamata was the culprit behind what was happening in Midnapore.

Elaborating upon his point, Dasgupta, flanked by Abani Roy of RSP and Birshingh Mahato of the Forward Bloc, said: ``They are trying to waste gains from the land reform movement and give the lands back to the jotedar families whose lands had been earlier distributed among the landless peasants.'' He said the jotedar families, who are leading the bloody campaign for the Trinamool Congress, have licensed guns.

The team of nine MPs, he said, will urge the Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, to restrain the Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee from ``spreading the bloody campaign in Midnapore. ``We'll specifically ask the administration not to allow any outsiders in Chamkaitala on 9th August when Mamata Banerjee organises her scheduled meeting there,'' Dasgupta said.

``If they want to come to power, they should do it in a democratic manner, where we have regular elections,'' Dasgupta told reporters. He however blamed the media for ``writing one-sided stories'' about the violence in the district.

``When we went to Keshpur, Sabang and Pingla, not many Press people went with us otherwise they would have seen weeping women who were molested and whose homes were gutted by the Trinamool hooligans,'' Dasgupta said, adding that the Press ``is not trying to realise the full implications of the fascist politics of the Trinamool Congress.''

He said as the representatives of the `peace-loving Left political parties,' ``We told the police and the administration to deal with the trouble-mongers irrespective of their political links.''

Dasgupta regretted that a section of police was backing the Trinamool Congress. He blamed Mamata Banerjee for creating a division in the administration.

He said during their visit they ``found cases of rapes of a few young girls by the drunk TMC activists.''