Kolkata:
The CPM-Trinamool war in West Bengal has intensified. The Trinamool Congress has hit the street in Kolkata with the body of party worker Sanatan Hembrom, killed in Lalgarh on Sunday.
The party claims that Hembrom was shot dead by CPM goons during a clash between workers of both the parties.
Taking out a procession is being seen as a tit-for-tat move by the Trinamool in response to the CPM procession on Friday with the body of a student killed in a campus clash. The boy was a supporter of the CPM's student wing, the Student Federation of India (SFI), and the Chief Minister had laid a wreath on the student's body.
Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee is expected to do the same when Hembrom's body reaches the party office this evening after criss-crossing the city.
"The number of killings on an average reaches 8 per day... we all were shocked on hearing the news our leader being killed... but determined that no way our workers will get into the provocation launched by the CPM rather we will observe a peaceful procession to demonstrate our unity among the people," said Partha Chaterjee, a Trinamool Congress MLA.
Today's procession - from Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Street to Shyambazar to Dharmatala in the city's centre - will end at the Trinamool office where Mamata Banerjee is expected to garland the body.
With Assembly elections in the state due around May next year, there are apprehensions that Kolkata and the rest of Bengal will see more of this somewhat gruesome dead body politics in the coming months.