TMC wants to eliminate the Left in West Bengal: Prakash Karat

New Delhi: CPI(M) on Thursday alleged that TMC has launched a "systematic" offensive to "eliminate" the Left Front in West Bengal and 12 of its workers have been killed in a spate of attacks led by the ruling party's supporters after the West Bengal Assembly polls.

"Taking advantage of the electoral victory, Trinamool Congress has planned an offensive with a view to eliminating CPI(M) and other Left organisations in the state," CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Prakash Karat said.

"Nowhere in India has such a planned and systematic attack taken place to eliminate a political formation and its movement. What is happening in West Bengal is a savage and premeditated attack on democracy, the democratic rights of citizens and their right to lead a dignified life," he said.

Karat made the remarks in the editorial of forthcoming issue of party mouthpiece "People's Democracy" and claimed that the total number of Left supporters killed in such attack has gone up to 186 since the 2011 Assembly polls.

Over 3,000 workers have been injured since, he added. The attacks specifically targeted women, he said, noting the state reported 31 cases of rape and 746 of molestation during the period. "Even children have not been spared", Karat claimed. More than 1,000 offices of the Left parties have been "destroyed, ransacked or captured" by TMC men, he said. Over 11,000 people were forced out of their houses in the last two months, he alleged.

The attacks are aimed at "terrorising areas where the Left Front has performed well so the people are cowed into submission" and to destroy the party organisation and capture trade unions, he said.

Karat said CPI(M) has launched a week-long solidarity campaign in West Bengal to draw attention towards the "violence and attacks on democracy".