Cast in the same mould

When Lok Sabha member Idris Ali threatened to "tear off the tongue" and "chop off the limbs" of Communist Party of India (Marxist) District Secretary Gautam Deb, he was, in a way, carrying forward the legacy of some of his Trinamool Congress colleagues. A few months before the incident, an FIR was filed against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee for publicly threatening to "gouge out the eyes, cut the hands" of rivals. The first-time Trinamool MP had made the statement while addressing a meeting of his party workers in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district. A year ago, actor-turned-politician Tapas Pal, who represents the Krishnanagar Lok Sabha constituency, was caught on camera exhorting his party men to kill Marxist workers and threatening to let loose his boys to rape their women.