ON July 24, a strong protest demonstration was held by five Left parties in Delhi. The call was to expose the terror unleashed by the TMC in West Bengal and the BJP-IPFT in Tripura. The central leadership of CPI(M), CPI, CPI (ML)-Liberation, Forward Block (FB) and RSP participated at Parliament Street. Such protests were also organised in different parts of the country.

In Delhi, the activists of the Left parties from Delhi region and from the neighbouring districts of Haryana and UP participated. Leading activists from Tripura and West Bengal were also present in the Delhi protest. The members of parliament from the Left parties also joined the protest meeting. Before that, the Left MPs held a protest in front of the parliament. Jitendra Choudhury and Mohd Salim raised the matter in the Lok Sabha.

The central leadership of the five Left parties including S Sudhakar Reddy (CPI), Dipankar Bhattacharya CPI(ML)-Liberation, Debabrata Biswas (FB), Ashok Ghosh (RSP) and Sitaram Yechury CPI(M) addressed the meeting. Pinarayi Vijayan – CM of Kerala, Manik  Sarkar-former CM of Tripura and Biman Basu, convenor West Bengal Left Front also addressed the people gathered in Delhi.

Sitaram Yechury, while explaining the depth of the terror unleashed in Bengal said that more than 200 activists of Left have been killed in the TMC raj. Both the BJP and the TMC are playing competitive communalism and there is a famous saying, that the alliance between them is no more clandestine. It is quite open now. He further said that the fight put up by the Left to secure the democratic values and safeguard the provisions of the constitution is getting weakened with the attacks on Left strongholds like Tripura. This has to be fought by all Left and democratic sections of the society. S Sudhakar Reddy of the CPI said that the administration in both the states of West Bengal and Tripura is used to spread terror and intimidate Left workers. Dipankar Bhattacharya of the CPI (ML) said that the lies spread by a section of the media needs to be exposed that since there were Left governments in both the states, hence the attacks are a backlash – anger of the people. These are physical attacks with ideological moorings of the ruling sections and hence needs to be fought bravely.

TRIPURA

PROTEST marches were organised at 26 places covering 21 sub-divisions of Tripura against the butchering of democracy in the state as well as West Bengal. The marches were organised as part of the all India protest day call given by Left parties. District and sub-division level Party leaders led the protest marches and addressed the rallies.

In Agartala, an impressive procession of about one thousand people started from the CPI(M) West Tripura district committee office and crisscrossed the city before assembling for a meeting in front of the Rabindra Shatabarshiki Bhavan. Here, the rally was addressed by the leaders of the Left parties namely CPI(M), CPI, RSP and FB. Bijan Dhar, the president of the meeting described in detail the heinous nature and manner of attacks on the Left leaders, workers, sympathisers, barbaric arson and looting of their houses, shops, etc. He lashed out at the attacks and demolition of the offices of the opposition political parties, particularly the CPI(M), with a view to marginalise the opposition bases. Bijan Dhar said the attack on democracy, on human rights, attack on religious rights – all are initially targeted against the communists. But later on, all sections of common people, irrespective of the party, caste, creed and religion are subjected to such terror from the ruling forces. It is the lesson of the history. Thus, it is time, all the sensible people, irrespective of party affiliations who want democracy to prevail in the state, should rise in unison to protest this onslaught. Gopal Das, Shyamal Roy and Milan Baidya on behalf of RSP, FB and CPI respectively addressed the rally.

ASSAM

The Left-Democratic Mancha (LDM), Assam, a combination of 11 Left-Democratic Parties, has organised a protest rally and procession in Guwahati on July 24 in response to the nationwide call of the Left Parties in protest against the 'Murder of Democracy' in West Bengal and Tripura by the ruling TMC and BJP-IPFT governments respectively.
The protest meeting was addressed, among others, by the CPI(M) state secretary and convenor of the LDM, Deben Bhattacharyya, senior CPI(M) leader Uddhab Barman, CPI state secretary Munin Mahanta, CPI-ML leader Pankaj Kumar Das, NCP state president Dhiren Adhikary, AIFB secretary Rai Mohan Singh, etc. All the speakers condemned the increasing attacks on Left Parties and workers in West Bengal and Tripura by the ruling parties. They
also came down heavily on the BJP-RSS combine and Modi government at the centre for their intolerance against the democratic forces and parties.