[It is quite interesting to note how Ms. Mamata Banerjee, till the other day widely perceived as a fascist hood in the broad Left circles in Bengal and not without good reasons, is getting metamorphosed into a darling of a section of it - the Maoists, to be specific.]
I/III. http://www.indianexpress.com/news/mamata-to-maoists-just-wait-cpm-will-be-out-i-will-bring-development/658401/0 Mamata to Maoists: Just wait, CPM will be out, I will bring development *Subrata Nagchoudhury* Posted online: Tue Aug 10 2010, 04:32 hrs *Lalgarh : *Union Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee today issued a “peace” message to the Maoists and combined it with her pressing need to make inroads in the Naxal heartland, a CPM bastion where her Trinamool Congress has had little electoral success so far. Addressing a mammoth rally in Lalgarh in West Midnapore district this afternoon, she urged the Maoists: “Tell me what you demand. Give a time. Tell me the place and I am ready to initiate the peace process.” She asked Maoists and tribals in Lalgarh to spell out clearly what they wanted. If they wanted schools, colleges, hospitals, roads, she said, that would be ensured. “Just wait for a few more months and the Marxists will be out of power. I promise to bring development here. If you want jobs, I can set up a railway factory in Lalgarh to provide jobs to the unemployed.” On the July 2 killing of Maoist spokesperson Azad in an encounter with the Andhra police, Banerjee said: “I believe Azad had been murdered. It was unjust. But peace talks should be started... I pay my respect and tribute to Azad.” She said she was ready to visit Dantewada in Chhattisgarh and was ready to talk to the Maoists there too. She invited Swami Agnivesh, Medha Patekar and other national leaders to visit Lalgarh and “areas of strife in West Bengal.” At the same time, she tried to distance herself from Maoist violence and bloodshed. “I have no support for those Maoists who are killing people. I do have the guts to tell them standing here in Lalgarh that I do not support them. On this historic day of Quit India movement, the people of Lalgarh must take a pledge that terror has to quit Lalgarh,” she said. The Maoists will have to seek a solution to their problems through Constitutional and democratic means, she said. “We have won battles in Singur and Nandigram through peaceful means. And we can do it in Lalgarh.” If she was critical of Maoists indulging in the politics of killing, she renewed her demand for withdrawal of joint operations in the region. “It is only helping the CPM,” she said. “The CPM cadres are carrying out raids in CRPF and police fatigues in the region and capturing villages. The leaders at the Centre were being misled and fed wrong information,” Banerjee alleged. Clearly, with this rally — after 13 months — Banerjee is testing the political waters. In the 42 Assembly seats that cover the Naxal heartland of West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia, her party has none. Even in the Panchayat elections and the 2009 Lok Sabha where she rode an anti-CPM wave, the Trinamool made hardly a dent here. With her eyes firmly set on the 2011 Assembly polls, this is one region she can hardly ignore. She even asked one of the most trusted lieutenants, Subhendu Ahikari, MP from Tamluk, to take on the “Marxist challenge” in CPM bastions Lalgarh, Jhargram and Salboni. She said she was ready to visit Chhattisgarh and Dantewada suggesting that she was ready to talk to the Maoists there too. She invited Swami Agnivesh, Medha Patekar and other national leaders to visit Lalgarh and “areas of strife in West Bengal.” II. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/PCPA-steals-the-thunder-at-Didis-roadshow/articleshow/6284834.cms PCPA steals the thunder at Didi's roadshowCaesar Mandal, TNN, Aug 10, 2010, 03.26am IST LALGARH: As expected, Mamata Banerjee's Lalgarh<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Lalgarh> rally turned out to be a PCPA<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=PCPA> show, every mile of the way. The Maoist-backed outfit showed its might and reach, marshalling foot soldiers from the remotest of villages, teaching the famed Trinamool Congress<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Trinamool%20Congress>machinery a thing or two about crowd management. The white-and-green PCPA flags far outnumbered Trinamool flags in the 60,000-strong rally. What's more, wanted PCPA leaders — including Asit Mahato, who carries a reward of Rs 1 lakh for the Jnaneswari Express<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Jnaneswari%20Express> carnage, and spokesperson Manoj Mahato — led huge processions to the venue, sending police into a flutter. Busloads of PCPA supporters, shouting 'Mamata Banerjee zindabad', streamed into Lalgarh all day and well into the evening, even after Mamata had finished her speech and the rally had wound up. Trinamool leaders went into a tizzy on seeing their supporters hopelessly outnumbered. Party MP Subhendu Adhikary was heard announcing in a desperate manner: "This is an apolitical rally. We ask everyone to lower their party flags and banners." In the morning, police had done their best to corner the PCPA. Villages were raided to prevent PCPA from mobilizing villagers. Teams went looking for Asit and Manoj but the duo was already in Purnapani village by then, hardly 2km from the venue. Trinamool leaders waiting at the school grounds got a shock when they saw the PCPA flags in the first procession to reach the spot. That was just the beginning. With their big drums, the Jangalmahal locals announced their resounding presence. The Trinamool crowd had been mainly brought in from East Midnapore and other South Bengal districts, but most of them were caught in a massive traffic jam in Jhitka forest, caused mainly by the flood of PCPA supporters. It was almost surreal to see jhitka, a Maoist<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Maoist> den that has seen much bloodshed, jam-packed with honking vehicles. The road through the forest is generally deserted all day, or sometimes dotted with burning trucks. Police managed to stop some of the rallies, mainly in Jhargram. PCPA worker Sushil Mahato was arrested near Lodhashuli while organizing a procession. Three others were rounded up near the rally venue. "Sushil was nabbed in Nischintapur village. He was arrested earlier but had fled from custody. The three others were picked up from Gohmidanga village. They are accused of extortion," West Midnapore SP Manoj Varma said. Manoj Mahato accused police of trying every means to thwart the rally. "In areas where police cannot find anyone to arrest, they are asking vehicle owners and drivers not to provide us cars," he alleged when TOI spotted him in Purnapani. III. http://www.hindu.com/2010/08/10/stories/2010081062351000.htm *Mamata's show of strength at what cost to Congress at Centre?* Smita Gupta New Delhi: Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee's public rally at Lalgarh in West Bengal on Monday has put the ruling Congress at the Centre in a spot: a Union Minister acknowledged that his party would have to “pay a heavy price” for her show of strength, backed as it was by the People's Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCPA), which is a front for Maoists — and whose leader, Chattradhar Mahato, is currently behind bars. Political compulsions are forcing the UPA government, currently putting together a strategy to take on the Maoist domination of a swathe of the country — which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described as the single largest internal security threat — to turn a blind eye to Ms. Banerjee's association with the PCPA. For, the Congress is dependent on her party, Trinamool Congress' 19 MPs for the government's survival. Ms. Banerjee's oblique attack on the UPA government at the rally, when she criticised the recent killing in an encounter of Maoist spokesperson Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad, is also an embarrassment to the government. Pointing out that social activist Swami Agnivesh, the interlocutor between the government and the Maoists, had persuaded Azad to agree to talks, she stressed, “I feel the way Azad was killed is not right. He had reposed faith in the democratic process.” The police claimed that Azad, No. 3 in the Maoist hierarchy, had died during a firefight with the security forces in the jungles of Adilabad in the Congress-ruled A.P. The Congress' dilemma on Monday was only too evident. Privately, party leaders were critical of Ms. Banerjee's rally; for the record, party spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed said: “The Congress has extended moral support to the rally as intellectuals, writers, artists and others are working for restoration of peace in the area.” He, however, dodged all questions on the role of the PCPA and the Maoists in mobilising people for the rally. Meanwhile, the Congress' State unit members, who were not invited for the rally, are upset at the position that they have been placed in. “The government has a holistic approach to deal with the Maoists,” Mr Ahmed said. “If there are genuine grievances, those should be removed, if there are perceived grievances, the perception should be removed, if development is needed, it should be carried out but if some people believe in the cult of the gun, they should be firmly dealt with.” The rally also provided the Left parties with an opportunity to score some political points in the Lok Sabha, where their leaders asked the Centre to clarify its stand on the Maoists as a “responsible party in the government and its Ministers” had decided to organise the event in Lalgarh. ** -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB.
