‘Political violence big worry for W. Bengal’

Apr 12, 2011 |

IANS

Kolkata

Political violence and the “politics of confrontation” are a big worry for West Bengal as even civil society and the media tend to politicise issues, rues Somnath Chatterjee. The former Lok Sabha Speaker is concerned about free and fair Assembly polls as the trend is to “terrorise and mislead people”.

“Today the trend is to terrorise and mislead people through falsehood and make politics out of confrontation and conflict. It is a matter of greatest concern and worry today. Issues are becoming more and more irrelevant. It has reached a crescendo in West Bengal,” Mr Chatterjee, 81, said in an exclusive interview.
The former Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) MP alleged that a section of the media has become “wholly politicised” and is fanning trouble. “One shudders to read about killings, murders and also the role of a section of civil society, which has been discriminating with respect to deaths, murders and mayhem on the basis of their own political thinking and affiliation — something not always openly admitted,” said Mr Chatterjee.
In the Assembly polls from April 18-May 10, some political observers say the Left Front is facing the stiffest challenge of its 34-year reign.
Asked if it would be different from the other elections fought since 1977, Mr Chatterjee said: “Well, I don’t know. I am not campaigning. I am not taking part in these elections. I am not going anywhere for these elections.” “I only hope that people will be allowed to vote freely and fairly. I have seen the 1972 elections, which were a farce,” he said while refusing to compare the current situation with the state of affairs when Emergency was proclaimed in 1975.
“There is no point trying to compare the situation today with what happened during the Emergency because that was a case of a power- hungry government trying to end democracy in this country to remain in power,” said Mr Chatterjee.
—IANS

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/67064" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-b564d6b140ac30f9bdcfcc55cebfaaf6" value="form-b564d6b140ac30f9bdcfcc55cebfaaf6" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="88637782" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>