“Let there be an all-out war against the communists, which may last for three months,” declared chief minister Suvendu Adhikari in the state Assembly on Thursday, 10 September. “Are you ready for battle?” he asked the MLAs, prompting BJP legislators — who number 206 in the 294-member House — to respond with a resounding “yes”.
There appeared to be no immediate provocation for the remarks, except what was seemingly in the chief minister’s mind.
The occasion was a special session convened to pass a Bill allowing the inter-university transfer of teaching and non-teaching employees. The draft Bill was circulated to MLAs at 10.30 am, just half an hour before the session began, triggering protests from the Opposition.
In his rambling address, Adhikari said little about the Bill, except to declare mockingly that great leftist scholars would now be given an opportunity to demonstrate their scholarship in backward districts. Delivering a political speech in the assembly, he launched a vicious attack on the Left and Jadavpur University.
A few days earlier, he had led a group of Naga sadhus in loincloths and several thousand supporters carrying saffron flags to the university gate, where he threatened to uproot “anti-national” elements from the campus. He had also vowed to return to the campus to recite the ‘Hanuman Chalisa’, a compilation of 40 chaupais composed by Tulsidas in the 16th century.
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