Members of the visiting team did their best to present a neutral front to everyone they spoke to, including officials common people and newsmen. The visit occurred in the backdrop of persistent complaints about the serious law and order problems plaguing different areas in West Bengal. However, their body language spoke eloquently of their shock and disbelief about things they saw and heard.

To give only two instances of the kind of message they left behind as visiting arbiters of administrative propriety: the team visiting the Shunia area in Midnapore district, where the CPI(M) and Trinamool Congress supporters have been at loggerheads, ended up telling them, “Please understand that you have to live here together in peace. Unless you people change your ways, no outside agency can bring peace back here.”

And in Hooghly, another team visiting the trouble-prone Arambagh area, appeared shocked by the fact that hundreds of non-bailable arrest warrant had simply not been served by local police because the accused” “could not be found.” Local people complained that most criminals actually roamed around boldly and freely, especially those connected with Left parties. All over the state, around 80,000 such warrants have not been processed for years ! After the team left, local police in a token gesture raided local houses and presto, 17 CPI(M) supporters, earlier untraceable, could be rounded up on a single night !

Said an analyst, ”Surely this must be the lesson of lessons in the new millennium for West Bengal — people must stop fighting if they want peace and the police have to arrest people against whom there are warrants ! What a sad commentary on the political parties and the state administration!”

If state leaders and senior administrators were abashed over the exposure of their level of political culture and functional efficiency, they kept such feelings to themselves. Caught on the wrong foot, their discomfiture exposed in the media, they pretended that it was business as usual.

Details of the visit have been widely reported in the local as well as national media. As usual some poignant moments stood out, in addition to what has gone before. The visiting team at Canning, south 24 Parganas, repeatedly hearing complaints about the lawless methods pursued by one “Rezzak,” finally asked of the local police, “Just who is this Rezzak everybody complains of?”

By way of answer, a stunned silence, much shifting of feet and finally the mumbled reply: ”He is Rezzak Mollah, a senior Minister belonging to the CPI(M),” comments unnecessary.

At Shunia again, the visiting team heard shots fired in the distance. As they wondered what was happening, senior policemen tried to explain that some crackers were going off in the distance! Not that members of the team, exchanging silent glances, were deceived.

At Arambagh, local people beseeched the visitors to help them live with dignity, in the face of joint repression unleashed by the local left parties and the police. Almost everywhere, even senior police officials were openly denounced as” CPI(M) agents”.

No wonder CPI(M) leaders, caught with their pants down, later tried to divert attention by pointing out that this was a rare occasion when the CEC had sent a team on a state visit even before elections were declared .They accused the team of being partisan and visiting only areas suggested by the TMC and opposition parties.

Not that it made much difference. The Kolkata High Court observed in an interim ruling that the firing by alleged CPI(M) musclemen at Netai village in Midnapore on Jan 7, killing nine people including women, was “unacceptable in a civilised society.” Earlier state Governor M.K. Narayanan had made public a similar reaction. The court also ordered immediate compensation payments to the next of kin of victims.

But Narayanan, visiting Netai villagers, found himself without answer, when a young widow approached him and asked, ”My husband has died, leaving three young children. Please tell me how are we going to leave?” He left without an answer.

This is what Bengal’s politicos and an uncaring administration has reduced a once flourishing, lively state to. (IPA Service)