In the increasingly bipolar West Bengal, Rediff.com's Sanchari Bhattacharya encounters a different campaign rally in Jhargram -- that of jailed leader of disbanded PCPA and alleged Maoist sympathaiser, Chhatradhar Mahato.
In a unique protest against fuel price hike, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday rode pillion on an electric scooter to state secretariat Nabanna.
Trinamool Congress MP Kabir Suman, who has opposed Operation Greenhunt, discusses his passions and politics in a lively interview.
Arrested Maoist-backed tribal leader Chhatradhar Mahato has been charged with sedition and booked under various sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for raising funds for a terrorist outfit and attempting to murder police personnel.
'We have to strive to bring these people into the democratic system,' says civil rights activist Sujato Bhadro.
Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee on Monday warned the West Bengal government not to use the stringent anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act against intellectuals by alleging links with Maoists, but the ruling Left Front stuck to its guns.
Tribal leader Chhatradhar Mahato, who was arrested yesterday near Lalgarh where he had been leading an agitation against alleged police excesses since last November, was today remanded to police custody by a special court till October 1.
Elusive tribal leader Chhatradhar Mahato, spearheading an agitation since November last year against alleged police atrocities at Lalgarh in West Midnapore district, was arrested on Saturday.
'The people at Lalgarh die of starvation regularly, there is no health infrastructure, our children don't get proper education, the tribal languages are neglected and no steps are taken for the welfare of the Jangalmahal residents. If the PCAPA is given power, it can really do wonders,' says PCAPA convenor Chhatradhar Mahato.
Tribal leader Chhatradhar Mahato has refused to give a sample of his handwriting to a local court in Midnapore.
Maoists have started losing their sway over the people of Lalgarh and its surrounding areas in the wake of a sustained operation by the joint forces and the arrest of tribal leaders Chhatradhar Mahato and Sukhshanti Baske.
There was nothing unethical about the arrest of tribal leader Chhatradhar Mahato by the police disguised as journalists, a top West Bengal official said on Tuesday.
Tribal leader Chhatradhar Mahato, who went underground after the anti-Maoist operation began in Lalgarh, on Wednesday dared the government to arrest him and said the administration was scared to do it. "I have not fled anywhere. I am at Lalgarh only and if the administration wants to arrest me, let them come and arrest me," Mahato, the chief of People's Committee against Police Atrocities, which is widely believed to have links with the Maoists, said over phone.
Claiming that the Trinamool Congress is not perturbed over desertions by some leaders, she said politics is a solemn ideology and philosophy and one cannot change these everyday like clothes.
Lalgarh, once a nerve centre of Naxal insurgency in West Bengal, now represents a different place.
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