The CPI(M) today took strong exception to what it said leak of the Union Home Minister’s letter to the media before it reached its addressee, the Chief Minister, today, describing it as ‘unthinkable’.
“The way the letter, which has reached the State government after 11 o’clock today, has been leaked to media is unthinkable and uncalled for,” CPI(M) state secretary Biman Bose told reporters here.
“How can this happen?” Mr. Bose wondered saying the contents of the letter were the same as leaked to the media.
About the contents of the letter which called for disarming of armed CPI(M) cadres in the State, Mr. Bose said the Centre should not be ‘moving in a partisan manner to help interests’ of the Trinamool Congress.
“It is very dangerous. It is wrong to leak the letter to the media. In this the political interests of the Trinamool Congress have been served,” Mr. Bose, who is the Left Front chairman, said and called the letter ‘motivated’.
Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday at a Congress workers’ convention in Murshidabad’s Nabgaram, which falls under his Jangipur parliamentary constituency, echoed the Trinamool Congress allegation of CPI(M) terror, saying a ’jungle rule’ prevailed in the state.
Admitting the existence of CPI(M) camps in Jangalmahal, Mr. Bose said, CPI(M) supporters and those close to the party who were rendered homeless after their housed were either burnt down or damaged had been sheltered in those camps.
He regretted that this found no mention in Mr. Chidambram’s letter.
“Initially, thousands of CPI(M) workers, supporters and sympathisers were rendered homeless. They had been sheltered in party offices. Some make-shift camps had to be set up to shelter them. Now many are returning to their homes,” he noted.
Referring to Home Ministry figures cited in Chidambaram’s letter that upto December 15, 2010, the number of Trinamool Congress men killed and injured were 96 and 1237 respectively, Mr. Bose said, “I demand Trinamool Congress furnish the names, dates and places where they were killed.”
“I can submit a list of 337 Left Front cadres who had been killed since the Lok Sabha elections. In three districts (West Midnapur, Bankura and Purulia) 222 Left Front cadres had died,” Mr. Bose claimed.
Claiming that Trinamool Congress resorted to lies, Mr. Bose asked, “How long will they continue with this to confuse the people?”
He described as ‘double standard’ the street meetings being organised by the Trinamool Congress to protest against price rise when the Railway Ministry in a notification had increased freight rates by four per cent thereby pushing up prices of essential commodities.
CLP leader Manas Bhunia in the Assembly today asked the Chief Minister to come to the House and give a statement on the issue to end the controversy.
Raising the issue during a special mention with the permission of the Chair, Mr. Bhunia said since people had been left confused by statements and counter-statements on Mr. Chidambaram’s letter, they had every right to know the fact from the Chief Minister himself.
