Bloc’s dilemma: will fight, but can’t quit

This is the third such occasion in the last one year when the Bloc has openly defied the CPM and revealed the discord in the Front.

Bloc state general secretary Ashok Ghosh had been unusually aggressive on the first two occasions and had even announced that the Bloc could quit the Front. After the press conference where he announced the bandh, Ghosh, however said: “We are in the Left Front and we will continue to be in it.”

“This is a political necessity of the times,” he added.

Last year, after police shot dead 14 people in Nandigram when villagers protesting the government’s land acquisition plans turned violent, Ghosh had openly said the oppression was worse than what they faced during the 1972 rule of the Congress-led government of Siddhartha Shankar Ray.

Ghosh had earlier demanded that the CPM consult its partners and take them into confidence in the handling of Nandigram and other policy issues.

The next cause for discord was the Reliance Retail’s plan to build a farm-to-table retail chain in the state, and the CPM’s open support to this initiative. The Bloc targeted Reliance’s outlets, forcing the group to put its plans on hold.

On Tuesday, Ghosh said: “The CPM is running the government and the Left Front alone. We cannot accept this.” And then came the pacifier: “But this does not mean that we will fracture the Left Front. We have built it.”

Top leaders of the CPM refused to comment on Ghosh’s statements to the media.

Sources, however, said the CPM’s assessment of the power structures at the grassroots level shows that the Bloc will lose heavily if it decides to contest the forthcoming panchayat elections on its own.

While the Bloc accepted that it cannot quit the Front, the RSP and the CPI’s statements showed that their discord with the CPM will persist.

“It is the Front’s policy that police should not interfere in a democratic movement. We want an inquiry into the entire incident,” the CPI said in an official statement.

Senior RSP leader Kshiti Goswami, who is also the Public Works minister, said: “I still cannot understand why the police had to open fire.” “We are giving full moral support to the bandh,” said Goswami, who also leads the RSP’s protests against the CPM’s “dictatorial” attitude. The state administration, meanwhile, said though the police had prior information about the Forward Bloc’s plans to hold protest, they had to resort to firing after they failed to control the protesters.

Inspector General (Law and Order) Raj Kanojia said the firing left four persons dead and 30 injured, adding that the situation is under control now.

According to preliminary official figures, at least two inspector-level police officers were among the injured. District sources, however, put the number of injured officers at 12.