The Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) which met in New Delhi from June 22 to 24, 2018 strongly condemned the violence against the CPI(M) and the Left parties in the state of Tripura and West Bengal.
In Tripura, since the assembly elections four comrades have been killed; nearly 100 offices of the Party and mass organisations have been demolished, forcibly evicted or occupied. In the face of these unabated attacks nearly 500 comrades have had to shift from their homes and are temporarily accommodated in camps at Party offices. Apart from physically targetting Left cadres, even programmes and events conducted by the Party and the Left have come under attack.
Even the former Chief Minister and the leader of the opposition in the Tripura Assembly, Manik Sarkar, was obstructed from visiting distressed tribal areas along with a team of elected MLAs. The leader of the opposition discharges responsibilities equivalent to the rank of a cabinet minister under Indian parliamentary democracy. Obstructing his legitimate programmes is unprecedented in the history of Indian parliamentary democracy and constitutes a violation of Constitutional rights of legislators.
West Bengal: The Central Committee deplored the all-out violent attacks on the Opposition, particularly on the CPI(M) and the Left, including implicating thousands of cadres with false cases, attacks on livelihood and properties of our cadres and their family members across the State.
The Central Committee noted with concern that recent panchayat elections in West Bengal was turned into a total farce by the ruling TMC. During the entire election period attacks were mounted on opposition parties and their candidates through collaboration of police, state administration, state election commission and the terror brigade of the TMC. Even family members of candidates were targeted for attack. Ten comrades were martyred during the course of these elections.
Given the grave situation in both these states, the Central Committee decided to hold a national level protest against the murder of democracy in the states of West Bengal and Tripura in the month of July.