The body of 65-year-old Shaflu Soren, a member of the local CPM for over 20 years, has been lying outside the party office, draped in a blood-spattered white sheet — for the last six days since he was shot dead by Maoists.

His brothers walk by the body several times a day but they don’t dare remove it.

For, barely yards away, the demolished CPM party office in Lalgarh’s Dharampur is a pointer to the rapidly changing political power equation in this tribal belt of West Midnapore.

The plight of Soren’s family captures the Lalgarh story — it’s a story of the clout of the new Maoist-backed “rulers” in this belt and a story of the shocking collapse of the legendary CPM-controlled administrative machinery.

In many ways, it’s similar to the violent agitation in Nandigram but while land acquisition and the proposed SEZ were the objects of public ire there, here the CPM is the single target.

And with the comrades paralysed by the rout in the Lok Sabha elections, the opposition is energized like never before.

Just like in Nandigram, the footsoldiers of this campaign — more violent in its scale than any — have come under a “rainbow coalition” of political forces where everyone except the Marxists are welcome.

So if there was the Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee in Nandigram, it’s the Police Atyachar Birodhi Jangana Committee here (PABJC).

It’s led by Chhatradhar Mahato, who was with the Trinamool Congress until late last year.

... contd.