The Congress on Monday raised many eyebrows by openly condemning a rally by the Trinamool Congress (TMC) with the body of a party worker who was allegedly killed by Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) workers.
“Politics with the body of a dead person is deplorable. It may whip up sentiments and precipitate counter violence. The Congress does not subscribe to any sort of violence and counter-violence,” state Congress President Manas Bhunia said.
The statement underscores the fragility of the bond the two allies share even as they look to renew their alliance against the CPI-M-led ruling Left Front before the Assembly elections, barely after five months away.
The procession by the TMC – one of the major allies of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre – comes three days after it accused the CPI-M of politicising the death of a student activist in a clash.
As the city remained on the edge of a spiralling tension over campus violence, the body of Sanatan Hembram, who was shot dead at Lalgarh in West Midnapore district Sunday, was carried in a procession from Shyambazar in North Kolkata before converging in a rally at Esplanade.
Earlier the TMC had decided to organise a protest march in protest of “CPI-M-sponsored terrorism”, but the program was revised overnight as the leadership decided to bring in Hembram’s body.
The program coincided with the statewide strike in educational institutions, called by the CPI-M’s student arm Students Federation of India (SFI) in protest of a death of an activist in clash with TMC’s student wing Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad (TMCP).
Leader of the Opposition in the state, Partha Chatterjee claimed that Hembram was a long serving leader of the party and he had been killed by CPI-M workers.
According the Police however, Hembram was a member of ‘Sido Kanhu Gana Militia’, a front action squad of the underground Maoists, operating in West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia districts.
Unsurprisingly, the ruling Left-front administration cried foul over Hembram’s death saying it proved their allegation that the TMC was linked to the Maoists.
“There is nothing surprising when the body of one who was associated with the Maoists was carried in a Trinamool procession, given the party’s link with the Maoists,” CPI-M Rajya Sabha member Md Salim said.
He said, “It is unfortunate that while it was scheduled to be a political procession, a body was brought in as an added attraction to turn it into a funeral procession.”
TMC leader Partha Chatterjee, however, called the allegations part of the “CPI-M misinformation campaign”.
Monday’s program comes amidst increased political tensions between the two parties in the wake of the death of SFI member Swapan Kolay in a clash with the TMCP at Andul in Howrah district.
The same day, an SFI supporter was nearly blinded and another nine supporters of the organisation received inuries in an alleged attack by members of the rival students’ front at a Kolkata college.
TMC chief Mamata Banerjee had denied her party’s involvement in violence, blaming it on the ruling communists and sought Centre’s intervention into what she described as a “military rule” by the CPI-M government.