BCL infighting violence again!
One has lost count of factious fights taking place within the BCL which keeps on flaunting a ruling party label despite the amended RPO, since the AL government came to power two years ago. The copybook reaction of the ruling party ranged from rebuke through exhortations to dissolution of committees to disowning the wing -- mostly as public posturing while indulgence in some form or the other continued behind the scene.
Against such a background, the student and youth bodies claiming proximity to ruling party and reflecting part of its arrogance kept engaged in their business as usual with an undeterred sense of impunity.
There might have been variations in the intensity and frequency of incidence but seldom has a period of lull extended to a point of public comfort. Or edged out as an indication of government taking things in grip in anyway. What has been particularly disquieting is the backlash far outstripping the incident in terms of the damage and trauma wrought to institutions and the society at large.
And why not! Because the infighting originates not in any intellectual or ideological cause but in the lure of profits that a turf war showers on the winning side. The outbursts are usually episodic, having to do with admission season, tendering for construction and other fringe benefits that go with territory.
The reason why we have traversed such a large ground lies in our being provoked by looking at what happened Tuesday in Jagannath University campus. There centring around manhandling of a follower of general secretary of the BCL unit by a loyalist of the president of the same unit, clashes fanned out between the two groups with the police late in the act. Since the admission tests are going on, apparently a turf war has had to begin.
In the fallout, as many as 30 including eight policemen and five journalists were injured, traffic got held up, panic spread and some vehicles vandalized. Predictably, the unit committee has been dissolved, hardly meaning though that the trouble-makers have been abandoned.
That is where the crux of the problem lies, the culprits are never punished, they somehow get rehabilitated. With a renewed gusto cemented by a new glue the public are treated with more of the same. It is high time AL finds ways to control their credibility destroyers.
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