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After the airwaves being jammed with visuals of police firing on innocent peasants at Nandigram on March 14 and the bloggers working overtime, it is the turn of the CPI (M) to control the damage done to its image. While the agenda of restoration started from the podium, where evicted pro-party Nandigram peasants are on a sit-in demonstration, CPI (M) has a plethora of programmes lined up, from making documentaries to SMS campaign to tell the ‘truth’.

The DYFI and SFI state leadership would soon launch a campaign to set facts right with a documentary that carries visuals from Nandigram the day of police firing. The SMS campaign would run simultaneously and pro-party blogs would ensure that these same facts are spread across the Internet, said party sources.

While this might seem like a pro-industry party making proper use of modern technology, the Left has realised that the most damning was the Internet ‘smear’ campaign that has run across the country and even to other parts of the globe. While this was more damning than intellectuals took to the streets the nation wide campaign over the Internet and through SMS worked against the party, spreading the word around eve to other shores.

Thousands of blogs were forwarded and e-mails exchanged, from those bearing data as reported by the media to the absurd — “Around 800 people have died and over 1,000 were injured in police firing.” Even though pro-Left, a large section of students from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi University and Jamia Millia Islamia caused further damage with their campaigns against the police firing. Even Forum for Democratic Rights, an on-line discussion board of Leftist Jamia students ran a campaign to boycott the Left.

Equally unflattering were SMSs that changed hands from the length and breadth of the country. These messages varied from limericks to jokes about the Left Front and Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and even data, attributing these to media and other sources.

The protest from intellectuals, who have been loyal to the Chief Minister and the party for the last three decades, caused further damage and brought the movement in front of the people and made them think why these people, who were known as the Nandan lobby even a week back carried placards and gave public speeches condemning the state government. Bhattacharjee has announced that he would meet intellectuals like theatre personality Bibhash Chakraborty, painter Shuvaprasanna and filmmaker Gautam Ghosh in an attempt to make them understand

Both Left Front chairman Biman Bose and Krishak Sabha leader Benoy Konar, however, criticised the city intelligentsia for shedding false tears. “They did not protest when our supporters were thrown out of their homes, tortured, killed and raped just because they were CPI (M) supporters,” Konar said at the sit-in demonstration. In a further note of controlling the damage, Bose put the blame on “local and foreign reactionary agencies working to destabilise the economy of Bengal.”

While the podium of evicted Nandigram peasants, recounting their tales of horror, might also be a similar strategy, CPI (M) seemed to have failed in convincing even its own as leaders from the three main allies CPI, RSP and Forward Bloc were conspicuously absent. Even Socialist Party leader and fisheries minister Kiranmoy Nanda, who expressed his confidence in Bhattacharjee, was also absent.

Email author: drimi.chaudhuri@hindustantimes.com