`CPM ready with ammunition to counter Advani missive’

“The Home Minister’s allegations do not add up to the total. He mentions some 300 odd cases, but elaborates only on six,” CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechuri said today.

Rebutting Advani’s contention that the figures of “the incidents…. have been reported to us by official agencies”, CPI-M leaders said, “We have the official records with us. The cases which the Home Minister refers to are not there in the official records.”

In his letter, Basu is likely to quote another set of figures of the “so-called political clashes”, which the Left claims is the “real official figure”.

Referring to the Advani’s annexure detailing cases of violence, Yechuri said, “The letter and annexure include extracts taken from the Trinamool Congress’s memorandum and not official records as has been claimed by the Home Minister.”

Describing the reply as politically motivated and highly partisan, the CPI-M Politburo members here said that to conclude that the entire state’s law and order was collapsing on the basis of a few cases happening in a single district showed the political motivation behind the exercise.

“It is highly irregular and surprising that a Union Home Minister in his official interaction with a Chief Minister takes recourse to this level of coalition politics. We expected him to above petty politics in his official reply,” Yechuri said.

Reacting sharply to Advani’s charge that Basu did not make any reference to the incidents (of violence), and therefore, he presumed that Basu is “not aware of them”, Basu has said the Home Minister has to first get his statistics right for “us to take cognisance of it’.

“The cases have been magnified beyond perception. The unprovoked attack on The Indian Express staffer shows who is creating trouble in West Bengal,” Yechuri said.

Pointing at the cases of violence against the minorities in Gujarat and Orissa, the Left leader ridiculed the charges against Basu government. “When it is Gujarat or Orissa, it has to be a foreign hand. Geroge Fernandes goes to Orissa after a blatant case of violence against Christians and gives a clean chit. And visits West Bengal for two hours and finds the state collapsing.” the Left leader said.