The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has plans to make West Bengal the epicentre of communal Hindutva forces in the east, senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Prakash Karat said on Tuesday (February 25, 2025).
Speaking at a public meeting at Dankuni in West Bengal’s Hooghly district on the conclusion of a three-day State Conference of the party, Mr. Karat referred to RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s recent visit to West Bengal.
“The RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat was in West Bengal for ten days. He was not here to participate in any religious event. He was here to strengthen the RSS and what kind of communal agenda the organisation must adopt to divide the people. How can riots and tensions between Hindus and Muslims be orchestrated,” the CPI(M) leader said.
During his visit, Mr. Bhagwat had held a public meeting at Purba Bardhaman on February 16, urging people to come in close contact with the organisation.
Mr. Karat, the coordinator of the central committee and CPI(M) Polit Bureau, said that the people of West Bengal were facing twin challenges of the “neo-liberal and communal agenda” of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre and “corrupt and criminal” practices of the Trinamool Congress in the State.
The former general secretary of the CPI(M) raised the issue of rising attacks on women in the State, including the rape and murder of a doctor at a Kolkata hospital. He said that he had warned that the attacks on the Left supporters during the initial years of the Trinamool Congress regime would not be limited to the political opponents but would take the common people in its fold.
Coming down heavily on the governments at the Centre and the State, the CPI(M) leader said that the rural poor in the State have been deprived of 100 days work under MGNREGS for the past three years.
“We cannot accept that the rural poor has been deprived of funds worth ₹7,000 crore in West Bengal… The way Mamata Banerjee government used the scheme as a pretext by the Modi government to stop the scheme in the state,” he said.
Mr. Karat said that it was decided at the State Conference that the party would increase its struggle against the “corrupt and anti-people” government of Trinamool Congress in the State and oppose the communal ideology of the BJP and the RSS at the Centre.
Hope for aa third alternative
The State Conference of the CPI(M) was held between February 22 and 25, almost a year before the State was set to face Assembly polls. The CPI(M)-led Left Front was ousted from power by Trinamool Congress in 2011 and it now has no representation in the State Assembly nor any Lok Sabha MP from the State.
Mr. Karat expressed hope that in the days to come, a new alternative of “Left and pro-people forces” would open up in the State. “The alternative to Trinamool cannot be BJP and BJP’s alternative cannot be Trinamool,” he said.
“The Modi government at the Centre has made clear about the class, character of the BJP, which means they talk about Hindus; they do not talk about ordinary Hindus but serve the interest of big industrialists,” the CPI(M) leader said.
If the BJP and RSS were strengthened in West Bengal, then it would mean that big industrialists would come to loot West Bengal, he said, cautioniong the people of the State.
