Yechury on Bengal polls: Murder of democracy

New Delhi: Calling the violence in West Bengal during the panchayat polls in the state a “cold-blooded murder of democracy”, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Monday accused the State Election Commission of going underground and the state police of colluding with the goons.

He was reacting to a couple being burnt to death at their home in South 24 Parganas district early on Monday, hours before the polling began. The couple, Debu Das and Usha Das, were working for the CPI(M). The couple was murdered, Mr. Yechury said, for resisting pressure from the TMC.

“The State Election Commission has virtually gone underground. The election observers are not willing to be contacted. The Election Commissioner himself is not accessible. The authorities are not ready to hear the other parties who are fighting the polls,” he said. He also accused the state police of colluding with “TMC goons”.

The TMC government, he said, was employing pressure at three stages: first, they did not allow the candidates to file their nominations; then they pressured those who filed nominations to withdraw their candidatures; and the third stage when any other party wins a seat and “they will force that candidate to either shift his loyalties or physically eliminate him.”

He denied that his party was working closely with the BJP and also asserted that the violence would not wipe the CPI(M) from the state. “They are trying to eliminate us, that has not happened, on the contrary there is resistance and in future too if this kind of violence continues people’s resistance will intensify,” the CPI(M) leader said.

The Communist Party of India and Congress too condemned the violence.