The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Thursday urged Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan to refer >Trinamool Congress MP Tapas Paul's hate speech to the Committee on Ethics and take “suitable action” against him.
While a delegation of the party met the Speaker along with several other women’s organisations, the editorial in the forthcoming issue of the party’s mouthpiece People’s Democracy dwells on anti-Left violence in West Bengal which, according to the CPI(M), has got scant attention in the national discourse despite 157 party workers and sympathisers being killed over the last three years.
The party also wants the National Commission for Women to take suo motu cognisance of Mr Paul's remarks and initiate criminal action against the MP. “Likewise, the National Human Rights Commission must move as the contents of the speech by this particular MP violates Article 21 of our Constitution that provides all citizens the fundamental right to life and liberty,” the editorial pointed out.
Earlier this week, several Bengali channels had aired a speech of Mr. Paul in which he threatened to “shoot down” political opponents and “unleash his boys to rape” their family members. His tirade was particularly directed against the CPI(M).
Ever since the Trinamool Congress government came to power in West Bengal in 2011, the CPI(M) has been alleging that it was indulging in the politics of terror and intimidation. As per the CPI(M), 157 activists of the party and the Left Front have been murdered in the State since May 2011.
About Mr. Paul’s speech, the editorial said, “Such comments which legitimise terror, violence and rape as political instruments have no place in any democratic civil society.” As for the Trinamool Congress disassociating with his comments, the CPI(M) described it as a “mere eyewash” and suggested that “voluntary peaceful people’s social ostracisation” of such members be tried out in a bid to cleanse polity.
Stating that it was not surprising that the State police has not yet acted against Mr. Paul, the CPI(M) noted that his using rape to threaten political opponents was evidence of the way “rape is being perfected as an instrument political oppression” in the State.
“In a sense what this Trinamool MP has said is a reflection of the actual reality that exists in the State today. The Trinamool Congress has unleashed a saga of gory violence and terror as its primary instrument of consolidating its rule in the state and garnering electoral support,” the CPI(M) said.
