Self contradictory manifesto’s of electoral alliance partners in West Bengal

Trinamool and the Congress manifesto reveal the duality of characters and the opportunist nature of the alliance of West Bengal opposition

KOLKATA: No sane person will believe this. Some excerpts from the manifesto of the Trinamool Congress. “Why shouldn’t the Digha - transformed into Goa? Why shouldn’t the north Bengal be Switzerland. Why should’nt Kolkata be London? If brought to power Trinamool will work on programme to make it possible. The stark absurdness of her manifesto is now a laughing stock for even for the Congress leaders- her alliance partners.

Though it is not envisable how presently a single representative party in the parliament Trinamool congress will come to power in the near future. But if again counting on vague probability she thinks that this is possible pillion riding on Congress’s back then also questions are bound to arise as to why the election promise of TMC is diagonally opposite of what the congress is saying. While the disinvestment process at the Centre and the state had gathered momentum under the NDA government and the Congress government of which she was part many times at election time this year facing the onslaught of the people against her Zero policies on anything of national importance she suddenly has encountered upon the benefit of having PSU units .

Though her alliance partner Congress has kept Mum about the privatization and her one time ally BJP is openly for privatisation of national resources. More importantly she has not uttered a single word against the BJP or Congress. Perhaps she wants to keep open all the sides open after the election depending on the national results. Recently chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya had said that even the ordinary congress workers of the state does not any confidence as to whether Trinamool Congress will stick with Congress after the post poll scenario. The fickle minded nature of Trinamool supremo where she has switched sides time and again has underlined this basic nature of unprincipled politics that TMC at west Bengal had been playing. Time and again her brand of politics has been negated by the people of the state but she has not changed a little bit even after the election verdicts.

More than 75% of the promises made by the TMC supremo have been centred on the state and any question of the national politics was not even mentioned there. But one thing for sure even the Trinamool which has given zero explanation for his antidevelopment roles and the promises that she has made , even has not been able to undermine the success of the West Bengal’s success under Left Front government in the field of agriculture ,though she has attributed this success to the climate of the state? On one side she has demanded why new industries are not coming up on another side she is hell bent on creating roadblocks in the path to the state’s development. In the question of infrastructural development also she had to play to the gallery by refusing to pronounce her stance of not letting the national Highways to come up.

Instead she has demanded that the state should advance in industrialization when she has started campaigning against the PCPIR project in Nayachar which has the potential to provide employment to over 1 lakh people in the state. While on the disinvestments and the privatization issue TMC, in face has said that they too want the disinvestment process to be stopped but in the past as the part of NDA she never raised a single objection to the rampart privatization effort of the then disinvestment minister Arun Shourie.

On the communal amity she said she wants that communal harmony to be maintained but as cabinat Minister in Bajpayee government she did not raised any objection to the Godhra carnage and still she thinks that Narendra Modi is the best Chief minster and Gujarat the ideal example of a state where development and peace exists. She never has demanded that the woman’s reservation Bill be passed in parliament but the politics of compulsion as she fears of getting caught in the eyes of the voters of the state has co0mpeelwed her to put the woman’s reservation issue within her demands.

While her electoral alliance partner the Congress government is reducing the interest of pensioners across the state she fearing people’s onslaught had to mention this demand in the election manifesto. Again an example of duality. She, on one hand has condemned the farmer’s suicides in Maharashtra? Will the government there accede to the demand of their partner? In case of Value added tax while she wants it to be abolished the congress on the other hand wants to strengthen the system of VAT.

In all, unable to face the people of the state the Trinamool too has to enact to play acting echoing the demands of the Leftists. But her hide and her act in the past won’t allow the people of the state to believe in her. Riding on anti leftist platform her poll promise had been a clear cut effort in hoodwinking the people of the state. As time and again the politics of the ruling class of the country has been negated by the people of West Bengal, her ploy of winning over the common people of the state by adhering to the demands of Leftists like 50% allocation of Central resources to the states have failed as the initial reaction of the common people has ridiculed this attempt of Mamata.

However, on the issue of giving support to the divisive forces the manifesto comes out of the way to show its clear support to the Maoists the separatists and the other cessionist elements of the state.On the last part of her mainifesto, her clear intention of hood winking the people has been pronounced, as she had said that the aim of her is to reduce the strength of the Leftists in the parliament as it is they who are creating road blocks to implement the various anti people measures of the successive Central government . So in the end she has admitted that her aim is to pave the way for elimination of the leftists as a deciding factor in the Central politics.

By SANDIP