CPI-M writes to Parliament seeking rape threat minister's ouster

The outrageous remarks by Trinamool Congress leader Tapas Pal reflect the reality of “politics of terror and intimidation” in West Bengal, the Communist Party of India-Marxist said on Thursday, as it moved Parliament to seek action against him.

Senior party leader Sitaram Yechury wrote a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, saying Pal’s statements were “a clear cut case of ethical misconduct... which has led to denigrating the image of parliamentarians and is also an unbecoming conduct on the part of the member”.

“It is therefore, kindly requested that the above said act of ethical misconduct may be referred to Committee on Ethics and suitable punitive action may be taken against the member,” Yechury said in the letter quoting in parts Pal’s controversial remarks against women and the opposition.

Separately in an editorial in the forthcoming issue of CPI-M organ People’s Democracy’, he said, “In a sense what this Trinamool leader Tapas Pal has said is a reflection of the actual reality that exists in the state of West Bengal today. The Trinamool Congress has unleashed a saga of gory violence and terror as its primary instrument of consolidating its rule in the state and garnering electoral support.”

Parliament has to decide “whether such members who make such outrageous and illegal comments should be allowed to be in the midst of lawmakers. It would, indeed, be a travesty for democracy that those who violate the law with impunity continue to sit as lawmakers of our country.”

“Since 2011 assembly elections and till last month, 157 activists and leaders of CPI-M and the Left Front have been murdered in the state. Only during the recent Lok Sabha polls, 12 Left workers have been killed and 8,785 seriously injured,” Yechury added.

Another major factor was the “large-scale disruption of agricultural activity” and displacement of poor and marginal farmers in all 17 districts of the state, he said, adding that 27,283 were evicted from their lands preventing cultivation in 9,811.83 acres of land.

Almost 49,000 families were evicted from their homes, 6,152 houses completely destroyed and 1,365 CPI-M offices ransacked, he alleged. “Instead of taking any action against the culprits, the police under the state government have taken into custody the victims,” Yechury alleged.

“The worst victims of such politics of violence and terror” are women as 291 have been raped, 675 molested and 1,035 physically assaulted, he said quoting a memorandum that Left Front submitted to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee recently.

“Needless to add, there has been no action that is forthcoming so far,” Yechury said.

Image: TMC's Tapas Pal.