The CPI-M state leadership today slammed the chief minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee for her ‘silence’ on the ongoing violence in northeast Delhi that has claimed 34 lives in the national capital. The party leadership has also asked all mass organisations, students’ platforms and common people cutting across their religious colours to stage state-wide protest against the union home minister Amit Shah on Sunday when he would attend a rally organised by Bengal BJP at the Sahid Minar ground.

Md Salim, CPI-M politburo member, today said, “Why is Mamata Banerjee silent at a time when violence is ravaging Delhi claiming so many lives including a police officer of intelligence branch? She is maintaining silence because she does not want further progress in connection with the inquiry on ponzi scams Sharadha and Narada in Bengal. So many investigating officers probing the scams have already been transferred elsewhere.” “The chief minister is busy with offering prayers in Puri and all set to meet Amit Shah in Bhubaneswar tomorrow. And Shah is also coming to Kolkata on Sunday, hardly a day after the Bhubneswar meet, to attend his party rally,” Md Salim alleged. “Her party won’t make any protest against BJP as well Shah whose hands have already become bloody with blood of riot victims in Delhi.

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The state government is failed to prevent BJP that is sponsoring politics of religious divisions and hatred in Bengal. We won’t allow Shah to address in his party programme silently without any disruptions at Sahid Minar on Sunday,” the CPI-M leader said. “People of Bengal who are anti-CAA and anti-NRC, different mass organisations and students’ wings cutting across their religious colours will stage protest against BJP shouting slogans ‘go back Amit Shah’ at Sahid Minar that had witnessed many protest programmes including Rabindranath Tagore’s historic decision to renounce the Knighthood award in protest against Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1941,” he said requesting people to maintain communal harmony in the state. Earlier in January when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Kolkata there had been a state-wide protest against him shouting slogans ‘go back Modi’, he added.

“How many people belong to CPI-M now so that the party can get them together to protest against Amit Shah? CPI-M is vanishing fast in the country just doing the politics of opposition against people as well as us,” said Dilip Ghosh, state BJP president. Amit Shah’s effigy burnt: State Chhatra Parishad activists took out a procession on AJC Bose Road and burnt an effigy of Union home minister, Amit Shah near Nonapukur tram depot today charging him of failing to combat the violence in the national capital over the last few days. This is a rehearsal of the agitation we are planning to organise against Shah when he visits Kolkata on 1 March.

This is an occasion when the actions of Congress and the ruling party in this state, Trinamool can be compared by the people, the Chhatra Parishad leader said. While our leaders are demanding the resignation of Union home minister for the Delhi clashes, Trinamool’s reaction to this conflagration is muted, he claimed. Apart from asking for peace, chief minister, Mamata Banerjee who always has a word on everything under the Sun is silent on this issue, Parishad leader Prasad said. She seems to have said goodbye to the times when she was a strident critic of the BJP, he said. The chief minister is paying lip service to secularism while pandering to the BJP, Prasad said. The meeting between the Union home minister and the chief minister is scheduled to be held tomorrow at Bhubaneshwar is another indicator of TMC-BJP bonhomie, he claimed.