MAMATA Banerjee government in West Bengal has failed miserably to discharge even preliminary duties to reach to flood affected people in the state. Incessant rain, compounded by cyclonic weather caused havoc in the entire southern Bengal from the last week of July.

More than 65 lakh people across 53 municipalities and 18,000 villages across 12 districts have been affected by the floods. Around ten lakh hectares of agricultural land have been inundated. Thousands of people were forced to leave their houses and communication was snapped. Waterlogged tracks disrupted train services. Buses were withdrawn from majority of district roads. Hundreds of buildings in villages collapsed with death toll nearing 100 by August 5. 

While the people struggled hard to survive, the state administration has failed to respond. Even with enough advanced warnings, the administration was caught unprepared when the disaster struck. The chief minister herself was in London and, usual to her style of work, failed to confer responsibility to any minister. District administration collapsed immediately when flood waters began to swell. Rescue operations did not start even after four days and relief materials were meagre. Thousands lived without food and drinking water for days in inundated villages. Embankments breached in many places while the administration remained in paralysis.

These distress days also exposed the collapse of panchayat system in West Bengal. During the Left Front period, the panchayats used to play a pivotal role in disaster management in rural areas. In contrast, the panchayats have now become appendices of local administration without any participation of people. They have been turned into weapons of corruption at the hands of ruling party who captured most of these panchayats through massive rigging in 2013 elections.

The chief minister has finally admitted a situation of ‘total disaster’ after a week but refrained from officially notifying flood. The state government’s attitude to peoples’ distress was reflected in the allocations too. It allocated a total of Rs 9.37 crores for 12 districts. This can be compared with the situation in 2008 when only two districts experienced flood. The then Left Front government allocated Rs 22.50 crores apart from extending relief materials immediately.

What caused serious discontent and astonishment was Mamata Banerjee’s arbitrary declaration that nobody would be allowed to give relief to the people except the administration. This has violated the social ethics of standing, besides affecting the people during disasters. It was clear that the ruling party will try to use the disaster for its political domination and will not allow anyone else to offer succour to the people.

CPI(M) and the Left parties however defied this unethical and inhuman ban and mobilised their strength to reach to the people. Party leaders and activists organised shelters, distributed food and relief materials as far as possible. True to the dictum of their supremo, TMC activists attacked opposition workers and elected panchayat members for being involved in the relief works.

CPI(M) state committee has called upon all Party workers to actively participate in the relief operations. The Party has given a call for mass fund collection from August 6-12 to help distressed people.

Opposition leader Suryakanta Misra wrote a letter to the chief minister, urging her to shed sectarian attitude and call all Party meetings at every level to organise relief. Misra specifically identified ten demands such as registering the loss of home and crops, sending specific memorandum to centre for adequate allocations, providing shelter and arrangements for treatment, guaranteeing work for rural people including 100 days work, providing minikit for small and marginal farmers, seeds at fair prices, reconstitution of agricultural loans, providing compensation and new loans to the affected people.

Left peasant organisations in the meanwhile have rescheduled their proposed march to state secretariat to August 26 instead of August 10 in the wake of flood situation. They have declared that their march would now include demands for adequate relief, loan and insurance for the peasants affected by the flood.