Resolution adopted at CPI(M) Plenum on Situation in West Bengal

Resolution adopted at CPI(M) Plenum on Situation in West Bengal

Situation in West Bengal

This Plenum of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) notes with concern
the grave situation in West Bengal. The last four and a half year misrule
has totally discredited both the Trinamul Congress and the government
headed by it. Large scale resort to terror tactics, attacks on all
sections of people including atrocities on dalits and tribals, alarming
increase in sexual assaults on women, monumental corruption including the
chit fund scams, rampant misuse of government machinery for partisan ends,
abject failure to deliver on promises made during the elections etc have
utterly exposed the real face of the ruling party leading to a strong
discontent against it.

Its image having been severely dented and its political credibility at an
all time low, the Trinamul Congress is resorting to manipulative tactics
including whipping up of minority passions. It is doing so to regain lost
ground, with Assembly elections round the corner. In one way or the other,
the TMC continues to pander to fundamentalist forces to polarize voters.
This has created a fertile ground for fissiparous forces to thrive. Though
a tacit understanding with the central BJP leadership is actively
underway, the TMC has been implicitly encouraging minority fundamentalism
hoping to harvest votes in its favour. This has worsened the communal
divide in the state. Notorious criminals are being mobilized with the open
support of the police and the administration.

Under the short period of TMC rule, the economy has turned into doldrums
and industry into tatters. Peasant distress has reached alarming
proportions. There is an all out attack on the livelihood of the toiling
people and social security. Groaning unemployment, loss of jobs and total
anarchy in the health and education sectors has created an unbearable
situation. Added to this is the criminal indifference of the TMC
government to the continuing starvation deaths of the closed tea garden
workers and the 134 peasant suicides so far.

Displaying its utter contempt for democracy, the ruling party resorted to
loot of votes unleashing indiscriminate terror during the municipal
elections held in April and October this year. Even journalists from the
mainstream media were not spared from attacks. The fascistic terror of the
TMC in collusion with the police and hoodlums is continuing unabated. The
leaders of the Left Front, Left MLAs, the other opposition leaders and
even the leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Surjya Kanta Mishra had
to face violent attacks of the organized gangsterism indulged in by the
ruling party. Normal political activity is being undermined by the
draconian measures taken by the TMC government. Recently, even the
Calcutta High Court was compelled to comment that the ‘law and order
situation has collapsed’ in the state.

So far 171 Left Front supporters including 164 CPI(M) cadres and leaders
have been mercilessly killed by the TMC goons.  The perpetrators of these
heinous crimes are roaming freely with the full knowledge of the police
and the administration. Countless number of cases of extortion and
forcible occupation of properties of the common people has been reported
in the media. Apart from the over one lakh Left cadres and supporters
facing many forms of persecution, the intensive terror has been extended
to people from all walks of life. This is further exposing the ruling
party in the eyes of the common people.

The sustained movement that our Party and the Left is conducting is
drawing increasing support from the people. This campaign and movement
will be intensified from January 2016, immediately after the Plenum.

This Plenum of the CPI(M) salutes the heroic resistance movement by the
people of West Bengal against the unprecedented terror and in defence of
democracy and secularism. The plenum welcomes the determination of the
Left and democratic forces to work for the defeat of the authoritarian
rule of the Trinamul Congress as also further isolating the dangerous
communal forces led by the BJP.