CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury addresses a press conference, at the party office in New Delhi on June 26, 2023.
| Photo Credit: PTI
Days after the joint Opposition meeting, General Secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist) Sitaram Yechury attacked All India Trinamool Congress party alleging that the State administration is complicit in the political violence that has killed 10 persons during the ongoing panchayat elections.
“They can’t say they want democracy in India and therefore, oust the BJP and then in Bengal [you throttle democracy]. That is not acceptable,“ he said. His comments come days after the two parties sat across each other in the joint Opposition meeting held on June 23 in Patna.
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Mr. Yechury was addressing a press conference at the end of a two-day Polit Bureau meeting in Delhi. Accusing the TMC Government, he said, it has become a norm in West Bengal that elections are marked by largescale violence and terror.
Young CPI(M) activist Mansoor Alam was among the casualties. Mr. Yechury added, “Killing 10 people in the State doesn’t demonstrate intent to save democracy. Mansoor Alam, who was in his 20s is hacked to death. What does it mean?”
He pointed out that in the last panchayat elections, 34% seats went uncontested. Elections should be held freely and fairly. The police and the State administration are complicit and connived to propagate this politics of terror and violence in the State, he added. “There is no democracy in West Bengal,” he said.
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At the same time, Mr. Yechury waved off a question on the arrest of Congress Kerala unit president K. Sudhakaran, on the same day as the Opposition meeting in Patna, in CPI(M) ruled Kerala. “It has nothing to do with politics. There is a police case going on and our government’s do not direct the police,” he asserted.
On the question of Opposition unity, he said it is the patriotic duty of every party that wants to safeguard the secular democratic character of our republic and the guarantees provided by our Constitution, should come together against the BJP. The CPI(M), he said, proposed at the Opposition meeting that there must be joint campaigns on important issues of national concerns and joint protest actions on issues of rapidly deteriorating people’s livelihood.