RG Kar victim mother fancying BJP ticket won't sway my justice demand for 'Abhaya', says CPI(M) leader Dipsita Dhar

Kolkata: CPI(M) young turk Dipsita Dhar is disheartened at the RG Kar hospital rape-murder victim’s mother wanting to fight the West Bengal assembly elections on a BJP ticket, but says her emotional connect to the polls continues to centre around the cause of justice for the tortured medical intern.

The 32-year-old Left candidate from the Dum Dum Uttar seat in the northern fringes of Kolkata asserted that her poll plank spills over to the fight for the state’s women at large, who continue to suffer gender-based violence.

Dhar, who takes on TMC’s heavyweight nominee and minister Chandrima Bhattacharya, said the elections provided her with yet another opportunity to seek justice for ‘Abhaya’ (fearless), a moniker given to the RG Kar victim by the state’s protesting millions.

Her assembly segment borders Panihati constituency in North 24 Parganas district, which houses the residence of the victim of the horrific crime which rocked the state a little over a year ago, and from where her mother is being seen as a likely candidate for the saffron camp.

The BJP has, so far, neither confirmed nor declined her candidacy.

“This, to me, was an emotional election from day one. Because right next to my constituency lived a woman, a wannabe doctor, whose dreams were cruelly shattered. And despite the outrage on the streets, justice wasn’t delivered. The probe was a sham and the real culprits remain free," the Left candidate told PTI in an interview.

Dhar said there is no change in her emotions towards these elections or her push for justice for Abhaya, even after the victim’s mother announced her intentions to join the poll fray on a BJP ticket.

“To me, this is an election to put forward the demand that women of Bengal are not disposable, who can be raped or killed at will,” Dhar, a public advocate and activist on gender issues, said.

She, however, countered the claims of the victim’s parents that the Left used Abhaya’s case for its own political gains.

"I have no issues with it. It’s her right. But I will say this: the CPI (M) stood beside the family or took to the streets demanding justice for the victim, not because it wanted to reap electoral benefits,” Dhar said, admitting that she was sad at the choice of party of the victim's mother.

"Justice for Abhaya was never meant to be restricted only to the victim or her family. It was a call against injustice to all women who have been at the receiving end of gender violence under the current TMC government in Bengal. We did what we did because it was the right thing to do and expose the rot in the system,” Dhar maintained, referring to CPI(M)'s involvement in the Abhaya rape-murder protests.

A student and researcher from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, where she honed her leadership skills in student politics, Dhar unsuccessfully contested the 2021 polls as a CPI(M) nominee from Bally.

She claimed that the SIR has pushed the real issues of people - those of dwindling health and education sectors, poor civic infrastructure, unemployment, etc - to the back burner.

“SIR has eliminated legitimate voters in the name of Logical Discrepancy, specifically targeting vulnerable sections of populations like the Matuas, working class, Muslims at large and also women, who were eliminated from electoral rolls," she said.

Dhar alleged that the exercise has created an "atmosphere of fear: what if they brand me as a doubtful voter, deport me or send me to detention camps? That fear psychosis has pushed a lot of genuine issues in Bengal to the backseat".

A shrill critic of the Mamata Banerjee dispensation, Dhar claimed that the CM's opposition to the roll revision exercise was nothing more than “eyewash”.

“The role that Mamata Banerjee promised to play, like SIR over my dead body, was merely empty rhetoric. Whatever constructive things she could have done, through her bureaucracy or through legislative means, were avoided," she alleged.

The optics of the chief minister donning the lawyer’s robe in the Supreme Court, arguing against SIR implementation, haven’t instilled voters’ confidence, Dhar claimed.

“If those Mamata Banerjee posturings really worked, so many people would not be left confused about whether they are rightful citizens or not,” the leader stressed.

Dhar said her party’s biggest challenge is to recover votes perceptively lost to the BJP in previous elections and restore its political footprint in the state assembly, now reduced to a blank.

“People who were disillusioned and angry with TMC, BJP seemed a viable option to them. But they have now seen how CBI fared with the RG Kar case, how it handled the Partha Chatterjee, Anubrata Mondal cases of scams, failing to punish the perpetrators. I believe people who were thinking of voting for the BJP to teach TMC a lesson now realise that’s not going to happen. I hope a lot of them are going to gravitate towards us,” she said.

Dhar added that the party is likely to bag significant support from the Matua community in the wake of their SIR disenfranchisement.

On countering Chandrima Bhattacharya as an opponent, Dhar said it didn’t matter whether it was her or any other TMC leader.

“They will be held accountable for the party’s underperformance in the seat, questioned for jeopardising the case of Abhaya. They will still have to answer why they stole jobs from the young people of Bengal. Our fight is political; the individual doesn’t matter," she said.

Asked how she dealt with the recent defection of Pratikur Rahaman, her one-time contemporary comrade-in-arms, to the TMC, Dhar said she relegated him to the realm of memory.

“After his defection, he is none other than a political opponent,” she said.