Questioning the Commission of Inquiry report into the police firing at a Youth Congress rally in 1993, CPI(M) leader Surjya Kanta Mishra on Monday asked why West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was not summoned by the Commission.
"I don't know about the report, I haven't seen it. But I have heard it has been said the firing is unconstitutional. But, was the programme to take over the Writers' Buildings by Mamata Banerjee, who was then the opposition leader, constitutional," said Mishra who is the Leader of Opposition in state Assembly.
"Why was she (Mamata Banerjee) not summoned by the Commission?" Mishra asked. Left Front chairman and CPI(M) state secretary Biman Bose too questioned the report and wondered whether the way "armed" Congress workers, under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee, attacked the Writers' Building was constitutional.
Several Left Front leaders, including former Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who was a minister in the Jyoti Basu cabinet then, had deposed before the Commission as also many Trinamool Congress leaders and ministers. Banerjee, however, was not asked by the Commission to depose.
Banerjee, who was the then Youth Congress president, had called a 'march to Writers' Building' (state administrative headquarter) on July 21, 1993, demanding mandatory use of voter identity cards for exercising franchise alleging that the CPI(M)-led Left Front indulged in large-scale rigging of elections.
Reacting sharply to the report, CPI(M) leader Mohammed Salim today dubbed the report as a "political leaflet" and said it was "unacceptable".
"Such report from a retired Judge cannot be accepted," Salim said in his reaction to the report of the one-man Commission of Justice (retd) Sushanta Chatterjee.
"There could be a discussion on whether the firing was done willingly or unwillingly, but comparing the incident with the Jalianwallah Bagh massacre has made it a political leaflet," the Left leader said.
"Comparing this firing with the Jalianwallah Bagh massacre, which is a very important chapter in our freedom struggle, clearly shows the political motive in it," Salim added.
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