A day after the Trinamul Congress delegation met the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, to complain about the misuse of the Central forces by the Marxist government, the Union home ministry mounted pressure on West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee asking him to ensure that armed cadres which are active in parts of the state should be “immediately disarmed and demobilised”.
In a letter dispatched to Mr Bhattacharjee, home minister P. Chidambaram said that there is evidence to show that there are camps of armed cadres, under the name of ‘’Harmad Vahini’’, located near CPI(M) offices and houses of local CPI(M) cadres.
“It is a matter of grave concern that these cadres have been provided with fire arms,” he said. The home minister reminded Mr Bhattacharjee that security forces — both of the Centre and state — have been deployed to counter the challenge of the CPI (Maoist) and the Police Santrosh Birodhi Janashadharaner Committee (PSBJC). There is no justification to deploy any other armed cadre or allow such armed cadres to counter the challenge of CPI (Maoist) and the PSBJC, he said.
“If these armed cadres continue to take upon themselves the duties of maintaining the law and order, I wonder what is the role of security forces, specially Central para-military forces which have been deployed at the request of the state government”? he asked.
The quick reaction from the government indicated that the Congress-led UPA is in no mood to upset Trinamul, its largest ally with 19 MP at this juncture. The Trinamul chief, Ms Mamata Banerjee, had also issued a veiled threat that if the Centre had failed to respond to her demand of taking immediate steps to prevent misuse of the Central forces by the CPI(M), she might have to reconsider her alliance with the Congress during the forthcoming polls.
Turning the table on the CPI(M)’s claim that its cadres are being killed by the TMC-Maoist nexus, Mr Chidambaram said that latest figures show that the largest number of killings that have taken place in the state are of Trinamul cadres which are a result of clashes between the CPI(M) and TMC cadres.
According to reports received by the home ministry till December 15 this year, the number of TMC cadres killed and injured were 96 and 1,237 respectively against CPI(M) cadres whose 65 cadres were killed and 773 injured during the same period. The Congress cadres who have been killed and injured number stand at 15 and 221 respectively.