CPM demands all-party meet to discuss Darjeeling situation

New Delhi: CPI(M) demanded that the Mamata Banerjee government should immediately convene an all-party meeting to discuss the Darjeeling situation in order to find an amicable resolution to the problem. “The developments in Darjeeling are not going on the right direction. Only administrative steps will not help,” CPI(M) politburo member Biman Basu told reporters here. He said the state government “should involve all political parties in the state and convene an all-party meeting immediately to discuss the situation and find an amicable solution” to the problem.

Basu, the state unit chief of the party who is here to attend the ongoing Central Committee meeting, also said “democracy and individual freedom are under attack” in West Bengal. Attacking the ruling Trinamool Congress, he said the party was emerging as “a dangerous ruling clique that was attacking not only the opposition Left parties but also the Congress”. “Now their in-fighting has reached such levels that one faction of Trinamool was killing their own partymen owing allegiance to another faction. And all this has a tacit support from the state administration,” Basu said.

He claimed Trinamool Congress had “mastered its violent tactics in the recent bloody panchayat polls and now planning to hone these skills in the upcoming elections to the urban local bodies”. On the developments in Kerala, party sources said CPI(M) has decided to send a team of top politburo leaders to Kerala where it has been leading an agitation to demand resignation of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy over the solar panel scam. The senior party leaders would be visiting Kerala in the next few weeks. “The state government has accepted our demand for setting up a judicial probe into the solar scam and we will wait for the commission to end its inquiry,” a party member said.