IRRESPONSIBLE & DANGEROUS MOVES OF THE RAILWAYS MINISTER

Left Parties Submit Memo to the PM


The following is the text of the memorandum given to the prime minister by the leaders of Left parties, Sitaram Yechury, Basudeb Acharia, Shyamal Chakraborty, Prabodh Panda, Manohar Tirki and Barun Mukherjee on December 4, 2009 on the irresponsible and dangerous moves of the railways minister.

YOU have called the ‘Maoists’ the greatest internal threat to the security of the country, and yet, the railway minister has kept providing these elements with her full fledged support in the media and through her declarations and acts. She has also repeatedly called for the release of Chhatradhar Mahato, named accused in murder cases. The railway minister is constantly demanding the withdrawal of joint forces from West Bengal, which will only facilitate the activities of the ‘Maoists’. Within hours of a landmine blast in West Midnapore on 27 November 2009 which killed two policemen, the railway minister denigrated the joint forces.

The said minister has claimed before the media inter alia that the violence being committed on and against the leaders and workers of the CPI(M) is not the handiwork of the CPI(Maoist) but a result of the internecine feud. She has called for the arrest of the Bengal chief minister and in the same breath, the release of Chhatradhar Mahato while repeatedly calling also for application of Article 355 and 356 in Bengal. The ‘Maoists’ receive a moral boost from her declarations and deeds and almost simultaneously the Maoist Leader Kishanji reciprocated by airing his loud suggestions that the present railway minister should be the chief minister of West Bengal.

The annexed copies of the media reports would make it clear, the All India Trinamul Congress, AITC, and the CPI(Maoist), have long been engaged in destabilising the political situation of the state by means of assassination, mayhem, arson, committing crimes on women and generally seeking to create a situation where the democratic fabric of the state is put under great duress. The ‘Maoists’ along with AITC activists are forcing people at gunpoint to join their rally and barricades.

The annexures submitted to the prime minister along with the memorandum provide a detailed list of the leaders and workers of the CPI(M) and Left Front assassinated by the ‘Maoists’ and the People’s War Group (PWG) from 2001. The number of those killed from June 2006 itself is 326. The ‘Maoists’ and the AITC have also killed scores of common men, women, children, as well as police and medical personnel.

The AITC leadership is a close patron of the leadership of the People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCAPA), and its supremo Chhatradhar Mahato. The annexures submitted provide examples of this state-of-affairs from media reports. Annexure III in the form of a CD contains photos that show the railway minister, Chhatradhar Mahato, and a section of the intelligentsia in confabulation in the area of Lalgarh, which has been a Maoist stronghold. The PCAPA is nothing but a mass front of the CPI (Maoist) as reports in the media have repeatedly noted.

We draw your attention to the recent declaration of the Maoist leader Kishanji that since they have provided support to the AITC at Nandigram against the CPI(M), the AITC should come forward and help them at Lalgarh and adjacent areas.

The most recent incident of the blockade of the Rajdhani Express exposes the AITC game plan further. Even as the blockade was going on and graffiti being painted on the sides of the bogies calling for the release of Chhatradhar Mahato who is presently in police custody, the railways minister blamed the Marxists, meaning the CPI(M) that has held the train up. To add insult to injury, a full 24 hours earlier to the blockade, an AITC central minister Sisir Adhikari had claimed before the media that he ‘knew that the blockade would take place.’ The source of ‘knowledge’ of this minister may kindly be probed and the nation kept informed.

At a time when the ‘Maoists’ have laid claim to the murder of an AITC worker Nishikanta Mondal at Nandigram on 22 September 2009, the railway minister keeps harping on the untruth that he was ‘killed by the CPI(M).’ On 29 November 2009, she has also said that she was privy to clues of the murder. The annexures submitted include the English translation of what has appeared in the Bengali print media on the nexus between the AITC-PCAPA-‘Maoists’ and the original reports in Bengali that have appeared in the Bengali print media.

We urge upon you to take appropriate implicational notice of the developments.

List of Trinamul Workers Killed: Bundle of Lies

KOLKATA: THE CPI(M) has altogether rejected as false the list of 83 Trinamul Congress (TMC) workers, presented by Ms Mamata Banerjee to the prime minister with the claim that these people were killed by the so-called Marxist violence in West Bengal. Addressing a press conference on December 8, the CPI(M)’s Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury said the list contained the names of at least eight persons who are either not associated with the Trinamul Congress or are Leftist workers or are alive. He said the sole aim of Ms Banerjee was to somehow raise in the media the bogey of violence and deteriorate the law and order problem in the state, so that the centre is compelled to clamp the president’s rule in West Bengal.

Yechury said we have, on our part, got Ms Banerjee’s list verified and we found that this was the first list of its kind. It contained the names of some individuals who, according to Ms Banerjee’s claim, were Trinamul Workers whom the CPI(M) men killed. There is nothing new here. After the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the Sangh Parivar had made the claim that karsevaks had been killed in large numbers, and their list was also publicised, but they turned out to be alive. Associated with the BJP in the past, Ms Mamata Banerjee is following in the footsteps of its erstwhile ally and indulging in the same kind of disinformation.

Yechury said Ms Mamata Banerjee had submitted her list to the prime minister in response to our publicly made challenge that she submit a list of the Trinamul Congress workers killed in inter-party violence. But the facts given in her list are wrong. Yechury said Ms Banerjee’s striving is to somehow justify the patronage she is extending to the ‘Maoists.’ In the name of violence, she for long raised the bogey of deteriorating law and order situation in West Bengal so as to compel the centre to promulgate the president’s rule in the state. Though she now no longer demands imposition of article 356 in the state, but still her plea now is for deployment of the army there.

Yechury said we would like to ask the prime minister how he would try to reconcile the contradiction that while he has described the ‘Maoist’ violence as the biggest threat to India’s internal security, a senior member of his cabinet is openly extending patronage to the “Maoists.’ Yechury said we raised this issue in our memorandum submitted to the prime minister but we are yet to receive a reply. However, we are still hopeful about getting a reply from his side.

Below we are publishing the names and addresses of the eight referred-to persons who were either not associated with the Trinamul Congress or were workers of the Leftist parties or are alive. At least two of them were never in existence.

GLARING FALSEHOODS

The TMC has submitted a list of 83 persons as the “Murdered Trinamool Congress Workers.” The following points are notable.

1) At No 52 in that list is the name of Asit Sarkar. He is a renowned Maoist activist. He was with the PWG since 1988 and worked in Midnapore district. In 1996, he was their chief leader in the Jungle Mahal area; was involved in Keshpur-Garbeta operations; was widely known as “Mangal Singh” in Naxalite circles. He was arrested in 2003 and released in 2009 only. His sister, Rita Sarkar, is also a Maoist. Even Asit Sarkar never claimed his association with the TMC.

2) At No 48 of the list, the name is Md Alam of Sikharpur Rajarhat. He was killed in Skharpur on October 23, 2009. He was a resident of Bhangar and was watching a soccer match in Sikharpur, adjacent to Vedic Village, when the tension in the area spread around. Md Alam was killed when Ajijul Islam fired from his pistol. Ajijul alias “Khude” is the younger brother of Arabul Islam, TMC MLA and a close associate of Ms Mamata Banerji. Khude is absconding since then.

3) At No 73 of the list, the name is Shankar Biswas. He was a CPI(M) activist and a front ranking worker of the UCRC, the refugees’ organisation. He was killed near Taldi station in South 24 Parganas on October 26, 2009. On October 30, 2009, a large condolence meeting was organised by the CPI(M) which party leaders like Sujan Chakraborty and Shibdas Bhattacharya attended.

4) One Avijit Saha has been included in the list. He was killed in Madhyamgram of North 24 Parganas by two TMC activists.

5) As No 62, Yasin Ali Paik of Mayureswar, Birbhum, was included in the list. He was actually a child of two and a half years. He died because of chronic illness. How could a child be a “TMC worker”!?

6) At No 6 of the list, the name is Jaydeb Bag of Baruipur, South 24 Parganas. No one of that name was ever killed or even died in Baruipur.

7) At No 22, the name is Mira Nasin of Nandigram. No one of that name was ever killed. Even Abu Taher, top TMC leader of Nandigram, has denied the existence of any such person.

8) At No 71, the name is Shyamal Hazari of Bermajur, North 24 Parganas. No one of that name was murdered or died, according to the police record. In fact, no TMC activist of that name was ever there in that area.

Buddha writes to PM on PTTI deadlock

KOLKATA, Dec. 11,2008: Chief minister Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has written to the Prime Minister urging the Centre to allow provisional recruitment of primary teachers from among the pass-outs of Primary Teachers’ Training Institutes (PTTI) which were declared illegal by Calcutta High Court.

The chief minister has assured that the pass-outs would be confirmed only after they had completed a year-long bridge course since the National Council of Teachers’ Education recognises only two-year-long training courses for primary teachers. The Court's directive had also rendered the certificates of those who passed out of theses illegal PTTIs, invalid.

Mr Bhattacharjee has also appealed to the Prime Minister for an early resolution of the PTTI problem which has affected nearly 75, 000 people and snowballed into a major controversy. “Unless this is done, apart from the future of 75,000 students who have already completed the course, the entire structure of primary education in the state will face a serious crisis since 40,000 vacancies in schools already exists and many schools will be without teachers. I seek your personal intervention in the matter,” reads the letter.

The state government had approached the MHRD to make a legislative provision to validate the one year long training course for primary teachers till the academic year, 2005-06. The CM also met the representatives of West Bengal Primary Teachers’ Training Students’ Union today at Writers’ Buildings and discussed the problem.

Manmohan cuts short West Bengal trip

Kolkata : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday cancelled his trip to West Bengal's Malda district due to heavy fog and poor visibility in adjacent Purnea from where his chopper was supposed to take off. He has left for New Delhi. "The prime minister decided to cancel his visit when officials learnt of the poor visibility at Purnea," Malda MP Abu Hasen Khan Choudhury told mediapersons.

Manmohan Singh was scheduled to lay the foundation stone of a technical institute named after the late Congress leader A.B.A. Ghani Khan Choudhury in Malda. The prime minister arrived in Kolkata on Saturday and left for Santiniketan, where he attended the convocation of the Visva Bharati University. He then returned to Kolkata and spent the night at Raj Bhavan.

PM sanctions Rs.950 million for Visva Bharati

Kolkata, Dec 6: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Saturday announced a grant of Rs.950 million for the Visva Bharati University at Santiniketan in West Bengal.Manmohan Singh said a high-level committee, under the chairmanship of state Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi, had also been appointed to promote the university as an international centre of academic excellence.

'I am happy to announce today (Saturday) that an amount of Rs.95 crore (Rs.950 million) has been sanctioned for implementing the initial plan prepared by Visva Bharati in pursuance of the recommendations of the committee,' Manmohan Singh said during the convocation held for the 2005 and 2006 batches of the university, of which he is the chancellor.

The prime minister said the University Grants Commission (UGC) had earlier sanctioned generous grants for the development of Visva Bharati and for expanding the facilities in its Santiniketan campus, about 220 km far from Kolkata. 'There is, therefore, no dearth of resources available now to the university and I would urge all of you to take full advantage of this,' Singh said in his address.

'Also, as a follow-up of the recommendations of the committee, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has completed the conservation work in the heritage buildings in the Ashram and will now restore the four buildings in the Uttarayana complex within the current financial year.
'A committee has been set up in August 2008 to advise on restoration of art works and other building related issues in Visva Bharati. All these initiatives will help the university to excel further,' he a said, adding that 'to come to Santiniketan is to come on a pilgrimage'.

Manmohan Singh, who came to West Bengal on a two-day trip, arrived at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International (NSCBI) airport here Saturday morning and then headed off for Santiniketan. Manmohan Singh will fly back to Kolkata in the evening and spend the night at Raj Bhavan.

On Sunday morning, the prime minister will again fly off in a helicopter to Malda district. He is slated to visit late Congress leader A.B.A. Ghani Khan Choudhury's residence at Kotwali in Malda. After this, the prime minister will go to Purnea, from where he will leave for New Delhi.

PM arrives at WB

Kolkata, 6 December, PTI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday arrived at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport on a two-day visit to West Bengal.

He was received by Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi and Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

Singh left soon by helicopter for Santiniketan to attend the convocation at Viswabharati, of which he is the Acharya (chancellor).He will return to the city tonight and will visit Malda on Sunday before returning to Delhi.