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Former Bengal CPI(M) leader’s daughter responds to show cause for article on CM Mamata
CPI(M) leaders were embarrassed when Jago Bangla printed a four-part series on women empowerment in Bengal politics that Ajanta Biswas wrote. The articles were prominently carried on the editorial page. The last part focused on the chief minister while the first three research-based pieces highlighted women from the pre and post-Independence era.
Ajanta Biswas, daughter of Anil Biswas, the former state secretary of the West Bengal unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M), has replied to the show-cause letter the party sent her for writing an article on chief minister Mamata Banerjee in Jago Bangla, the daily mouthpiece of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), last week.
The article, which projected the chief minister as a pathbreaker, appeared on Saturday. Though not active in politics, Ajanta Biswas is a member of the CPI(M).
“A CPI(M) local unit in Kolkata has received her reply. It will be examined before we decide our next step,” said Kallol Majumdar, secretary of the CPI(M)’s Kolkata district committee.
Majumdar said last week that usually a member is given a week to reply to a show-cause notice but Biswas would be given three days.
Anil Biswas, who died in 2006, was one of the most successful strategists against the TMC. He was a bitter critic of Banerjee who was the main face of the opposition during the Left Front regime.
CPI(M) leaders were embarrassed when Jago Bangla printed a four-part series on women empowerment in Bengal politics that Ajanta Biswas wrote. She is a professor of history at Kolkata’s Rabindra Bharati University.
The articles were prominently carried on the editorial page. The last part focused on the chief minister while the first three research-based pieces highlighted women from the pre and post-Independence era.
“After the articles appeared, Ajanta Biswas voluntarily wrote us a letter saying these were based on research. She did not mention why they appeared in the TMC mouthpiece. We have to study her reply to the show-cause letter,” said Majumdar.
The episode, however, has not ended for the CPI(M).
Two days ago, the daughter of a late state chief of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), one of the main partners in the Left Front, wrote an article in Jago Bangla criticizing the CPI(M) and supporting Ajanta Biswas.
Basundhara Goswami, the daughter of former RSP state secretary minister Kshiti Goswami, called the CPI(M) a “Stalinist party” and said arrogance of its leaders has ruined the Left in Bengal. She condemned the CPI(M) for taking action against Biswas.
Kshiti Goswami, who was Bengal’s PWD minister for many years during the Left regime, died in 2019.
“We take no responsibility for the article because Basundhara is not a party member. She was never even a member of our students’ front, unlike Ajanta Biswas,” RSP state secretary Manoj Bhattacharya told HT.
A state CPI(M) leader, who did not want to be named, said, “Our party has not taken any decision on the article Goswami wrote because she is not involved in Left politics.”
