'It can be the handwork of Maoists. At the same time, it can be the handiwork of some political forces, which cannot tolerate me. I have asked the Union home ministry to conduct a CBI enquiry on the issue,' said Mamata Banerjee.
Despite statements from the Union home ministry blaming the Maoists for the derailment of Gyaneshwari Express that has taken a toll of 141 lives, the Railways, in its FIR filed with the Jhargram GRP, did not name the Maoists. It also did not mention the posters that the police claimed to have recovered near the accident site, in which the Maoist-backed People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA) had claimed responsibility for the massacre, although PCPA spokesperson Asit Mahato had denied his organisation’s role in the mishap. Rather, the FIR stated that “conspiracy and sabotage” was the main reason for Friday’s tragedy.
Clarifying the reason behind deleting any Maoist reference from the FIR, Mamata on Saturday said that unless investigation establishes who is actually responsible for the massacre, the railways cannot name anyone in the FIR. “It can be the handwork of Maoists. At the same time, it can be the handiwork of some political forces, which cannot tolerate me. I have asked the Union home ministry to conduct a CBI enquiry on the issue,” she said.
Meanwhile, the state Congress leaders have criticised Mamata’s approach on the entire issue, with some asking how long a ‘Good M’ (Manmohan Singh) can continue tolerating a “Bad M (Mamata).
The most vocal among them is the Congress spokesperson in West Bengal, Nirbed Roy. “Mamata has repeatedly overruled the directive of the prime minister on the Maoist issue. Though he had made it clear only the Union home minister, P Chidambaram will make press statements on the Maoist issue, she defied his directive and said that there are no Maoists in West Bengal. It is quite unfortunate that the Prime Minister has to take the responsibility for such irresponsible politics by an UPA ally,” Roy said.
Senior Congress leader, Arunabha Ghosh, also ridiculed Mamata, saying that making irresponsible statements has become Mamata’s habit. “After the Stephen Court fire in Kolkata, she claimed that the state government had caused the fire there. Now she is hinting that the Gyaneshwari Express incident is sabotage by the state government. All these are highly irresponsible and dangerous comments,” he said.
The CPI(M) leaders have, however, carefully avoiding launching a direct attack on Mamata. The CPI(M) state secretary and the Left Front chairman in West Bengal, Biman Bose restricted their comments to saying that as the nation’s railway minister, Mamata will have to take responsibility for the mishap.
Parties extract mileage from mishap
With an eye on the civic polls round the corner, the state’s politicians are trying their best to extract mileage from the Gyaneshwari Express mishap. Even as investigations into the tragedy are underway, a group of Kolkata intellectuals known to be close to Mamata, including educationist Sunanda Sanyal, and artists Subhaprasanna and Yogen Chowdhury, claimed in a press conference that the mishap was the handiwork of the state government itself and that neither the Maoists nor the railways were responsible. Meanwhile, the CPM held Mamata responsible for the tragedy.
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