A delegation of Left parties on Monday met West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and sought her intervention to halt post-poll violence and alleged attacks on Left workers across the state. This was the first interaction between the chief minister and any high-level Left delegation after Mamata Banerjee came to power in May, 2011. This is also the first time CPI(M) state secretary Biman Bose met Banerjee since 2011.
The meeting is significant considering that the state BJP unit has upped the ante against Mamata Banerjee government following its bright performance in recent Lok Sabha election in West Bengal, winning two seats and 17.6% of votes.
Speaking to reporters after the hour-long meeting with the chief minister at the state secretariat, Biman Bose, also the CPI(M) politburo member, who headed the 11-member delegation, said "we have lodged our complaints to her through a memorandum as well as verbally."
"She has listened and assured us of looking into the matter. We will wait and see. If necesesary, we will have to take to the streets", Bose said. Besides Bose, prominent Left leaders in the state including state secretary of CPI Manju Kumar Mazumdar, RSP state secretary and former PWD minister Kshiti Goswami and Forward Bloc leader Hafiz Ali Sairani were in the delegation.
The Left Front suffered a rout in recent Lok Sabha election in West Bengal managing to win only two seats with 29.3 vote percengate.
Trinamool Congress had swept the polls winning 34 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal.
Bose had recently visited villages in Arambag in Hooghly district where party workers were allegedly attacked by TMC men.
The Left memorandum listed names of 157 Left Front cadres who were killed in the past three years since TMC came to power.
A five-member BJP delegation had visited Sandeshkhali in South 24 Paraganas district recently after some BJP workers were allegedly attacked there.
The delegation comprised senior leaders Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi, party's Bengal in-charge Siddharth Nath Singh and newly-elected MPs SS Ahluwalia and singer Babul Supriyo.
The party announced yesterday that a second team would visit the state in the next few days to assess the ground situation after one of its workers was killed at Illambazar in Birbhum district recently.
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