Mafia penetration alarms CPM

Author: Pioneer News Service/ Kolkata
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: January 8, 2005

Bolshevism has elapsed into felony; nothing remains of the communists save the tag, secret reports prepared on an army of influential local leaders say so. Secret because open allegation may lead to physical annihilation. That is the state of the powerful North 24 Parganas district committee of the ruling CPI-M, led amongst others by Marxist honcho Subhash Chakroborty, whose name has repeatedly been associated with sleaze racket accused Avtaar Singh and dreaded contract killer Haath Kata Dilip.
 
Mr Chakroborty has yet another claim to fame: He has an illustrious mentor in communist patriarch Jyoti Basu whose singular appeal last time saw party candidate Amitabha Nandy win from the Dum Dum constituency defeating the BJP's Tapan Sikdar in the general elections.

The secret report - vindicating the long-raised Nationalist Trinamool Congress contention - forwarded to the State committee alleges, a host of party leaders have earned disrepute for sustaining the builder-mafia nexus through out Kolkata. "A number of these leaders have risen to the level of local and zone secretaries," - formidable posts that can change the course of district administration's action - the report says, adding, when the top leaders ask the rank and file to confirm the allegations most of them do but refuse to give a thing in writing for the fear of being bumped off.
 
Character is the first casualty of enjoying absolute power for decades, party insiders hitherto sidelined for raising objections to the wayward conduct of the leaders feel. According to reports the State leadership has received, at least 140 complaints against the local leaders who can influence the decision of even the District Magistrate or Superintendent of Police.
 
Such is the situation that giving protection to contract killers has become a small thing and the leaders-turned-self-seekers have started making tens of crores from providing active help to the builder lobby by helping them encroach upon wetlands - incidentally the area has eco-friendly Ramasar site listed wetlands - "and grabbing lands from the feeble and widows," insiders say.
 
While the State leaders refused to comment on the stated reports, some of them referred to former Chief Minister Jyoti Basu's statement asking party workers to come back to track or face expulsion.
 
"You can expel some but you cannot expel bunches of them because they have all these years been used for garnering votes," a sidelined old timer said, adding the party has however, expelled around 300 workers found guilty of corrupt practices.
 

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