PM LAUDS BOOKS ON BENGAL POLITICS
Prime Minister Narendra
Modi has lauded three wellresearched books on West Bengal politics by senior Hindi journalist Ras Bihari, saying that “it is an important labour task to present decades of political history by highlighting it with fairness and correct facts”.
The PM made these comments when Ras Bihari presented the books to him at Victoria Memorial Hall in
Kolkata during the recent 125th birth anniversary celebrations of Netaji Subhas Chandra
Bose. The books, Raktanchal: Bengal Ki Raktcharitra Rajneeti, Raktranjit Bengal: Lok Sabha Chunaav 2019 and Bengal: Voto ka Khooni Lootera have come at a time when the state is going for Assembly elections. Ras Bihari was the president and general secretary of Delhi Journalists’ Association for a long time. At present, he is the president of the National Union of Journalists (India).
The books talk about the violent politics of Bengal.
The author says that political violence was expected to cease after Mamata Banerjee became Chief Minister in 2011. But it did not happen. There was rigging and violence in the 2014 Lok Sabha and 2016 Assembly elections. The murders and conflicts for political reasons from 2011 to 2018 have been mentioned in detail. The TMC leaders and activists fought with each other for the cut-money syndicate, grabbed contracts, collected extortion money and ran illegal businesses. To maintain dominance, the TMC men allegedly killed the CPI(M), Congress and BJP workers to spread terror.
Ras Bihari told The Sunday Guardian that his books describe Bengal’s bloodthirsty politics, with examples of incidents of rapes and setting houses on fire to teach a lesson to opponents. There is an indepth assessment of Mamata Banerjee’s life and politics and the CM’S confrontation with Governors on political violence.
According to Ras Bihari, with increasing political violence by the ruling TMC, the support base of the BJP is increasing and the base of the TMC, Congress and Left parties is getting narrow. The growing influence of illegal weapons and black money in politics has been highlighted.