Author: Ranjan Lahiri
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: June 15, 2002
The Left Front and the Congress
find themselves in troubled waters following their involvement in yesterday's
Jamait-e- Ulema Hind meeting where books, cassettes and pictures of terror
mastermind Osama bin Laden were sold to members of a particular community.
The CPM-controlled Burdwan municipality
had granted the organisation permission to hold the meeting, ostensibly
to protest against the communal riots in Gujarat and in support of communal
harmony.
Several Left leaders, including
RSP state leader Anjan Mukherjee and CPI district assistant secretary Arun
Ganguli, shared the dais with AICC member Tuhin Samanta and state Congress
leader Abhash Bhattacharyya, giving the Trinamul Congress an opportunity
to charge them with indirectly promoting communal politics with an eye
on the votebank.
"Thursday's events has made it clear
that these parties have begun toeing the communal line with an eye on next
year's panchayat polls," district Trinamul leader Gholam Jargis said.
The sale of "offensive" literature
and other paraphernalia right under their nose has also put the district
administration, the police and intelligence units in a spot.
The administration's participation
in another controversial rally - organised by the VHP in which more than
1,000 men vowed to go on a kar seva to Ayodhya - just two months ago had
led senior district officials to question the feedback received by its
intelligence units.
An embarrassed district magistrate
Manoj Agarwal had then ordered an inquiry into why the government allowed
the VHP to go ahead with the rally. VHP district secretary Biplab Das,
also a PWD employee, was suspended following the brouhaha.
Today, both Left and Opposition
leaders scrambled to offer an explanation for their presence in the Jamait
meet.
CPM state committee member Samar
Baora said the Jamait cannot be called a communal party and, instead, is
a kind of a social service organisation. "That's why our leaders responded
to their invitation," he said.
The offensive material was being
sold by unknown persons far away from the dais, Baora claimed.
Burdwan municipality vice-chairman
and CPM district committee member Ainul Haque blamed the police, saying:
"We had given permission for a peace meet. It was the duty of the police
and intelligence set-up to ensure that nothing untoward happened."
Samanta, who had attended the meeting,
said what happened was the responsibility of a few "warped minds".
