KOLKATA, 16th March, 2009: A big rally of LF workers was held on 16 March in the Indoor Stadium at Salt Lake. Addressing the rally was the Bengal LF leadership. Jyoti Basu spoke via a video recording of his speech. JB had been in indifferent health for some time in the recent past. His address was on display on four gigantic video screens.
IMPORTANCE OF THE THIRD ALTERNATIVE
JB centred his arguments on the emergence of the third alternative to both the reactionary Congress and the communal BJP. He marked the LS battle as the battle to decide the nation’s future for the next half-a-decade. The third alternative must be elected to office for it will work for the masses unlike the two big bourgeois political outfits. The new governance will follow an independent foreign policy. It will also ensure that secularity marks the government’s policy outlook.
In this task, said JB, the emergence of strengthened Left was of critical importance. Here Bengal must play a stellar role like Kerala and Tripura that are the Red bastions. The Congress-led UPA has betrayed the people. Except for the presence of the Left in numbers outside of the union government, a presence that prevented a rampaging liberalisation and privatisation, the world economic recession would surely have overwhelmed India. Entire arrays of public sector enterprises, surely privatised, would have been in deep débâcle. JB ended his speech by calling upon the politically-conscious people of Bengal to ‘defeat the unprincipled alliance of Congress and Trinamul Congress in Bengal, and make Left victorious by bigger margins than in the past.’
OPPORTUNISTIC ALLIANCE MUST BE REJECTED
State secretary of the Bengal CPI (M) Biman Basu noted the pendulum-like movement of the Trinamulis between the Congress and the BJP. Biman Basu was certain that the basic purpose of all three outfits, whether or not stuck to each other in various combinations out of sheer political opportunism, was to attack the Left in general and the CPI (M) in particular. Biman drew attention of the LF workers to the unholy rôle of the foreign powers and their local agencies to influence the elections against the emergence of the Left and the third alternative. The reactionary-sectarian-foreign agencies alliance could be defeated by augmenting farther the front of the common man, of the people, of the masses.
BIG WIN FOR THE LEFT A POLITICAL IMPERATIVE
Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said that the Left Front would have to secure its strong base that was Bengal. A big win here would also ensure that the country was not led astray, or pushed to the brink of ruination, especially for the poor. The strong presence of the Left would augment the third alternative and would also make sure that the ruling classes were not able to do a noxious sale out of the nation’s integrity and sovereignty to imperialist forces and their running mates. The third alternative, Buddhadeb pointed out, did not speak of individuals but pro-people policies. With the combined voting percentage of the Congress and the BJP in the last elections to the Lok Sabha less than 50%, Buddhadeb noted, the se forces could do but little that witness the people reject them farther in the upcoming polls. Other speakers included leaders of the LF constituents.
