Under pressure from the smaller allies, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Tuesday decided to reach out to the cadre and supporters of the Left Front, who are being targeted by members of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) after the polls in the State.
After a meeting with the allies, chairman of the Left Front and CPI (M) State secretary Biman Bose said that they are setting up ‘three committees’ to reach out to the Left Front members facing harassment.
There has been growing discontent among the supporters of the Left parties that despite attacks on them, the senior leadership have not stood by them. The allies like the All India Forward Bloc (AIFB) and the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) prevailed on the CPI (M) leadership to send a deputation to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee if the post-poll attacks on Left Front supporters continued.
“Though we are a smaller ally, sometimes we need to prevail on the CPI (M). We cannot indulge in armchair politics when our supporters and even those who have voted for us are being targeted,” a senior leader of the Left Front Committee, who was present in the meeting, told The Hindu .
The leader said that the smaller parties raised a ‘loud voice’ at the Left Front meeting during the day on certain issues that the leadership had to agree to it. Others who were present at the meeting said that there has been a ‘considerable delay’ in reaching out to the workers after the results of the Lok Sabha polls were declared.
Other than having three committees in north Bengal, south Bengal, and central Bengal, it was for the first time since the Trinamool government came to power in 2011 that the Left Front has agreed to approach the Chief Minister .
It was decided that a Left Front delegation would visit Arambagh in Hooghly district on May 31 where allegations of attacks on Left Front supporters are being made.
Addressing a press conference after the meeting, Mr. Bose said supporters of the Left Front were facing attacks and their houses and properties being vandalised.
“Why should we not go the Chief Minister? In the past, we had sent a deputation to Siddhartha Shankar Ray (former Chief Minister) of the State. We had also sent a deputation to the Governor, but it has borne no results,” Mr. Bose said.
