Is a wind of change, although of a different kind, is now sweeping the Jangalmahal? Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee who had been earlier barred by the CPI(M) from visiting the Maoist-dominated region, will be addressing a public rally at Lalgarh on Saturday.
The rally organised by the West Midnapore district CPI(M) will be the ruling party’s reply to Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee’s August 9 rally at Lalgarh.
Party insiders revealed that the CPI(M) rally at Lalgarh will be the celebration of its victory march in the Jangalmahal which was earlier a Marxist bastion but was run over by the Maoists in 2008 and had since been virtually out of bounds for the ruling party leaders.
After the Maoist attack on the chief minister’s convoy in the neighbouring Salboni in November 2009, the police crackdown in Lalgarh had resulted in a tribal backlash.
A people’s resistance group called People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCPA) was formed which was a Maoist front. The PCPA and the Maoists then had a free run of the entire area forcing the closure of police stations and government offices. As they grew strong, the rebels went on a killing spree particularly targeting the CPI(M) leaders and cadres in the area.
There was an enormous erosion in the party’s support base.
Situation started improving after the deployment of joint forces in June 2009 in Lalgarh. “After remaining on the backfoot, the CPI(M) decided to strike back when it became clear that the Trinamul Congress and the Maoists had joined hands against us,” a party state secretariat member said. That the ruling party was bent on recapturing its lost ground became apparent when general secretary Prakash Karat made it clear that the party would soon be venturing into the forbidden territory.
Ms Banerjee understood its game plan and therefore, started clamouring that the CPI(M) was running armed camps in the Jangalmahal. “There are 41 Assembly constituencies in the region and we cannot allow our opponents a cakewalk in them,” he added. Therefore, the party decided that offence would be the best defence to take on the twin adversaries: Maoists and Mamata. “She ( Mamata ) is demanding the withdrawal of joint forces so that Maoists can eliminate us and she can unfurl her party flag in the Jangalmahal,” the chief minister said in his speech in Kolkata on the eve of his rally in Lalgarh.
Echoing Mr Bhattacharjee, party state secretariat member Dipak Sarkar who has been spearheading the re-capture operation, said: “We also know the eye-for-an-eye tactics. But we will wait for wisdom of the people.” Mr Bhattacharjee said that the people of Jangalmahal had now woken up to the machinations of the Maoists and the Trinamul Congress.