West Bengal’s endemic political violence reared its head in its ugliest manifestation this time around after the polls with the targeted elimination of Suvendu Adhikari’s aide Chandranath Rath. In scenes straight out of a political or mafia thriller, the personal assistant of the man who led West Bengal to a ground-breaking victory with a two-thirds majority was hounded and shot dead within kilometres of his home in a gangland style execution.
With at least four deaths having taken place before the brutal Rath assassination shocked the state and sporadic firing having taken place on Central and state security and law and order forces in Sandeshkhali, Bengal was back in the firm grip of violence. This time, the incidents took place when the Election Commission is still in charge of the state in an interregnum that is being marred by the antics of the outgoing chief minister Mamata Banerjee who is refusing to tender her resignation.
The fact that she is technically on the way out as caretaker CM until BJP chooses to anoint a head of its legislature party may absolve her of any direct responsibility for this latest explosion of violence. But, over the years, she may have been inured to seeing gangs of party loyalists take on political opponents and commit murders, known as they are to have acted on emotional signals in territorial fights, first with the Marxists and then with the BJP after the political landscape had shifted less than 10 years ago.
The senselessness of violence and killing individuals for political messaging may not be apparent in a state that takes its politics emotionally and in deadly serious manner. The rabid levels to which inter-party rivalry is invariably taken has sadly been a feature of its intense politics. It is up to the incoming BJP, which has come to power with promises about security and law & order, to bring about peaceful change, not by revenge politics but by stricter law enforcement, speedier justice and spreading awareness about the futility of men killing each other.
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