Hooch tragedy: Mamata, stand up and stop blaming the Left

The value of human lives in West Bengal stooped to a new low as the ruling Trinamool Congress and its predecessor, the Left Front sparred in public trying to score political points, even as the death toll in the South 24 Parganas hooch tragedy climbed to 167 and counting.

Mamata Banerjee and Communist Party of India (Marxist) politburo honcho Biman Bose, last seen commiserating with each other after the AMRI hospital fire, are now playing the blame game with each other instead of joining hands to punish the guilty.

It is surprising that Mamata chose politics over police when everyone wanted her to ensure that the owner of the den, Badshah Khokan does not go scot-free. Although seven people have been arrested and the case is now being handled by the state CID, people want to see her display the political will to destroy the country liquor menace .

On Thursday, the chief minister fired the first salvo in the assembly by asking opposition CPM’s Abdur Rezzak Mollah to help locate Khokan as he might have been close to the state’s previous regime when Mollah said the incident had occurred “under the very nose of the police.” All hell broke lose. Biman Bose opted for a full frontal retaliation calling it the “largest killing in a hooch incident in West Bengal” and squarely blaming Mamata saying she her party-led panchayats allowed the hooch dens to flourish.

Her minister Partha Chatterjee retorted that “CPI-M leaders were behind the tragedy”. Then he went further by saying they “acted in a planned way by mixing toxic substances in the liquor which proved fata l."

A crisis that needed police attention and medical attention has instead become a political football.

Bose’s comrade and Lok Sabha MP, Mohammad Salim treaded on even more dangerous ground. He tried to give a communal colour to the tragedy by telling a news channel that deaths occurred in a particular community. We seem to have learned no lessons from Godhra.

It is an open secret that both Left and TMC bestowed their patronage on the hooch baron. They need the muscle power hooch kingpins provide. However, it is not the time to open that Pandora’s box and indulge in mud-slinging. The political class in the state must realise that the morgues are filling up. People are grieving over the death of near and dear ones and crying for justice. The government’s job does not end with a Rs 2 lakh compensation.

Mamata has a huge agenda and many problems. Infant deaths. The AMRI fall out. The rotting infrastructure. The crumbling finances. Hooch dens might figure low on that list. But hooch is just a symbol of the sad state of affairs in our society.

Hooch, or ‘haria’ in local parlance is easy to make and cheap to afford. Costing less than Rs 5 per glass usually, bootleg wipes out families, not only by sudden deaths as these but it is also a tell-tale statement about poverty, illiteracy and exploitation. It is a way for the poor to forget the drudgery and humiliations of their daily existence for awhile.

It’s time she stopped blaming the Left for all the state’s problems. She was voted in to bring change. Putting bootleg sellers behind bars and instilling a sense of positivity in the lives of people who drown their sorrows for Rs 5 a glass would be a good beginning.

Sparking off an avoidable political controversy, when law and medical attention should have rationally prevailed, Mamata had put herself under intense scrutiny. She needs to perform—check infant death in hospitals, root out hooch booths, prevent a second AMRI—and for that she needs to come out of the Left rule hangover for a new script from Writers Building.

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