Editor,
The zealous assertion of the Left parties, equating the BJP with the TMC on the scale of communalism, is absolutely foolish, to say the least.
Will the Left leaders kindly clarify when the TMC has taken resort to fomenting communal hatred or got associated with riots and pogroms unlike the BJP – the party the leaders of which are tarnished with invocation of Islamophobia right from the late 1980s to the present instant (with a person donning top constitutional post taking the lead in terming Muslims infiltrators with lots of children), and riots – igniting the Ram rath yatra, barbaric demolition of the Babri masjid, the 2002 Gujarat pogrom, and all sorts of divisive issues in terms of diet, attire, prayer and accommodation? Is the TMC even remotely associated with fatal ‘gomata vigilance’ or the poison-spreading mythical ‘love jihad’?
In contrast to the who’s who of the BJP, who always compete with one another as to how to divide the nation in religious terms with choicest abuses hurled against the Muslims despite holding constitutional posts, character assassinate the Christians by falsely accusing them of ‘conversions’, when have the TMC leaders divided the nation or Indians?
And it is nothing but an open secret that the CPM gets much pleased whenever the BJP edges out the TMC anywhere, surely because of the undiluted anger towards Mamata Banerjee, who had spoilt the party of the Left Front who were enjoying power of governance in West Bengal for 34 years.
This is the reason why, despite claiming the BJP as being equal to the TMC, the Left leaders condemn the latter infinite times more than the former, and this had got blatantly exposed during the campaign in 2019 general polls. It was ludicrous to notice how the Left Front banners and speeches revolved only around the allegations of scandal of the TET or Sarada-Narada, but hardly any statement or slogan against the record unemployment in the national scenario (worst in the last 45 years), the farce of fatal demonetisation snatching precious lives and posing severe blow on the economy and livelihood, inflation, crony capitalism and a series of terrorist attacks from Uri to Gurdaspur, Pathankot to Pulwama.
Thanks to such a mindset, it had been proven beyond doubt that the Left leaders had either no inclination to take on the BJP or the capability to fight against the central dispensation. So, right from the 2019 general polls to the 2021 Assembly polls and the 2024 general polls, a huge chunk of secular electorate of West Bengal are steadily shifting their voting allegiance to the TMC just to ensure the defeat of the communal and corrupt BJP, and this is the reason why the Left Front has literally turned zero in all parliamentary and Assembly constituencies of the state where they were in power even 13 years ago.
Therefore, instead of talking nonsense, Left leaders must descend from the ivory chamber of their dreamland and deeply analyse in utmost humility why common electorate are continuously rejecting them in successive hustings in West Bengal.
Kajal Chatterjee,
D-2/403,
Peerless Nagar, Kolkata