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| Attack on Union Minister's wife unites Opposition | | |
NEW DELHI, DEC. 2
The Congress high command has, without any fanfare, called for a detailed report in relation to the changing political situation in West Bengal. The situation has taken a different turn following a mysterious attack on the Union Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister, Priyaranjan Dasmunshi's politician wife. And the attack has badly strained relations between the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Opposition parties in West Bengal.
On Thursday, even as Congress and Trinamool Congress Party jointly put the West Bengal government on the mat in the Legislative Assembly, an Opposition-sponsored strike brought life to a standstill in northern Bengal where Deepa Dasmunshi, who is an MLA had a miraculous escape. Some unidentified attackers fired two rounds and smashed the windscreen of her car in the dead of the night this week.
The Opposition onslaught succeeded in extracting an assurance from Chief Minister, Buddhadev Bhattacharya, that the attackers would be arrested and tried irrespective of their political tag. Unmoved by Bhattacharya's assurance, the Opposition has threatened to hold demonstrations in Kolkata and submit a memorandum to Governor, Gopalkrishna Gandhi.
The Opposition insists that Deepa would have been killed on the spot if the driver of the ambushed vehicle did not speed away. Pinning the blame on the CPM, Deepa says the sole objective of the assault is to intimidate and immobilise her ahead of the December 4 by-election in North Dinajpur district's Islampur seat, which is being seen as an acid test for the Dasmunshis. While the I & B Minister represents Raigunj in the Lok Sabha, Deepa was elected to West Bengal Legislative Assembly from Goalpukur.
Significantly, Deepa has spent the last few weeks campaigning for Hamidur Rahman, the Congress candidate for the prestigious Islampur by-poll, while her husband was busy in New Delhi. Despite being an MLA and the wife of a Union Minister, she is Rahman's election agent. But as an election agent, she is not entitled to any security. So there were no policemen to protect her from attackers on the night of the incident.
Denying Deepa's charges, CPM leaders in Kolkata and North Dinajpur say that the red party is battling the Trinamool Congress - and not the Congress - in the Islampur by-poll. "The question of trying to intimidate Deepa does not arise. The Congress party is not in the reckoning. We are not all bothered by her campaign", said a senior CPM leader. Deepa says she is relying on what she calls 'people's power' to protect her from the CPM's 'terror tactics'.
"Two things saved me from death. My driver did not lose his cool. He did not panic. And secondly, ordinary people rushed out of their homes when I was fired upon. The gang fled fearing for their lives", she said. Interestingly, Bedbari, where she was ambushed, is tantalisingly close to the India-Bangladesh border where security has been beefed up because of the volatile political scenario in the neighbouring nation.
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