Bengal CPI(M) suspends former state secretary’s daughter for article on CM Mamata

CPI(M) leaders faced major embarrassment when Jago Bangla printed the four-part series Biswas wrote on women empowerment in Bengal politics. The articles were prominently carried on the editorial page.

The West Bengal unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M), on Saturday suspended Ajanta Biswas, daughter of former state secretary Anil Biswas, from the party for six months for writing an article on chief minister Mamata Banerjee in Jago Bangla, the daily mouthpiece of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC).

Ajanta Biswas, a professor of history at Kolkata’s Rabindra Bharati University, wrote the article as part of a series published in July. (HT FILE PHOTO.)

This is the first time disciplinary action has been taken by the Bengal CPI(M) against a member of a former state secretary’s family, party leaders said.

Revered by CPI(M) workers to this day, Anil Biswas was one of the most successful strategists against the TMC. It is widely believed that the TMC managed to build up successful movements after Biswas died in 2006. He was also the editor of Ganashakti, the Bengal CPI(M)’s daily mouthpiece.

Ajanta Biswas, a professor of history at Kolkata’s Rabindra Bharati University, wrote the article as part of a series published in July. Her piece projected the chief minister as a maverick and said the agitation she led against farmland acquisition for the Tata small car plant at Singur in Hooghly district contributed largely to her landmark victory against the Left in 2011. The Left Front’s 34-year-long rule ended that year.

CPI(M) leaders faced major embarrassment when Jago Bangla printed the four-part series Biswas wrote on women empowerment in Bengal politics. The articles were prominently carried on the editorial page.

Biswas was sent a show-cause notice by a CPI(M) area committee in the first week of August. The committee was not satisfied by her reply and recommended a six-month suspension. The decision was upheld by the CPI(M)’s Kolkata district committee on Saturday.

The district committee meeting witnessed a debate, party leaders said. Sticking to the CPI(M)’s tradition, no leader commented on record. Biswas, too, did not give any reaction.

Biswas has not been active in politics ever since her father died. Prior to that she was a prominent face of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) unit at Presidency College (now a university) where she studied. The SFI is the students’ front of the CPI(M).

While her first three research-based pieces highlighted figures such as Basanti Devi, Sarojini Naidu, Suniti Devi and others from the pre and post-Independence era, the last one focused entirely on Mamata Banerjee. It said that as a firebrand leader Banerjee played a historic role in state politics and ensured empowerment of women and movement at the grassroot level.

Reacting to the suspension, TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh said, “Instead of taking action against Biswas the CPI(M) should have suspended its leaders because of whom the party faced the rout in the assembly polls.”

For the first time since 1946, the Bengal CPI(M) has no legislator in the state assembly.