The recent deaths of two BJP workers in Balarampur in Purulia district of West Bengal have brought back the legacy of political murders in West Bengal. Although it is yet to be provided whether they were hanged to death or they committed suicide or TMC was involved, it is absolutely clear that there are political deaths or murders.

The timing or sequence of the incidents definitely highlights the fact that BJP’s impressive performance in the recently concluded Panchayat Elections in the state played a major role. Certainly, both TMC and BJP are now engaged in intriguing battle to get hold of the rural Bengal before the Lok Sabha Elections in West Bengal.

Earlier, during the Congress era in 1970’s, there was utter lawlessness in the state when the erstwhile Chief Minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray failed to administer the situation. The hoodlum years between 1971 and 1977 witnessed political murders when Congress and the left parties were in political battle and Naxalites caused serious mayhem in Bengal.

Whether the Congress government took the best approach or not is a debatable question but the scenario created mini anarchy in the state where normalcy got disrupted and ruthlessness of the police force was also criticised from all quarters. When Left Front formed the government in 1977, a different red narrative ushered a machinery based violence in the rural belt.

It took a decade for the Left Front to dump all sorts of opposition in the state. In the Communist regime, the left front leaders became industrialists, the farmers starved and the rural economy was in shambles. The era of political murder witnessed the shameless use of state apparatus by CPM.

In the 90’s, when Mamata Banerjee started her own brand of opposition with a portion of Congress, the left front government ushered red terror in all the villages which ultimately paved the path for the arrival of TMC in the state. But that actually didn’t change the scenario altogether. The entire lumpen CPM cadre base was shifted to TMC and thus the state is witnessing an embarrassing display of political murders where democracy has lost its hope on fair and fine public diktat.

Many political observers prefer to say that the rural West Bengal has not witnessed any free poll in the last five decades. Truly it is all about compromising the local machinery and thus the statistics of political murders in the state is unparallel than any other state in the country. No doubt, if TMC continues to persist on the violet line, it will subsequently pave the path for BJP’s arrival in the state. Thus the two deaths or murders of BJP supporters in Purulia reflect the violent Bengal legacy of political murders.