State-specific factors responsible for poll debacle: Bardhan

Kolkata (PTI): The process of land acquisition by the West Bengal Government to set up industry was not right, which along with some other state-specific factors, was responsible for the Left debacle in the Lok Sabha elections, CPI general secretary A B Bardhan said here on Sunday.

"We are not against industrialisation, but the process of land acquisition was not right. The state government should know how to carry on the process of industrialisation in a Leftist way within the framework of the Constitution," Mr. Bardhan said.

He was addressing the press after a two-day state council meeting at the Bhupesh Bhawan -- the CPI state headquarters.

Admitting that the Left Front Government in the state had created "some blunders", Mr. Bardhan said his party had always believed revival of the old and closed-down industries were as equally important as opening up of new ones.

Asked why it took them so long to realise this and whether they will take it up with the CPI(M), Bardhan said, "We had expressed our views within the Left Front and in different places. We will take it up in the Left Front meeting again."

He said apart from the land acquisition, there were other state- specific local issues as well which contributed to the poll setback in West Bengal and Kerala.

We are in touch with all parties, says Buddhadeb

KOLKATA: It is too early to comment on who is going to support whom and, at present efforts are on to form a government without the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said here on Monday.

The Chief Minister was responding to scribes’ queries on whether the Left would consider supporting the Congress in government formation.

“We are maintaining contact with all political parties ….We are not running after any political leader. We are busy trying to formulate a programme for an alternative government at the Centre,” he said.

On whether there were differences within the leadership of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on the issue of supporting a Congress-led government, he said: “We want to tell you there are no such lines like a [rest of] India line or a Bengal line. We belong to the same party and follow the same tactical line.”

On CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat’s reported remark that there was no question of supporting a Congress-led government, he said it was a “pre-election position” of the CPI(M).

He said: “We are just now trying to defeat both the Congress and the BJP and do not want to send a wrong signal that could confuse people…At this moment we are not trying to form a Left government in the strict sense of the term. We are trying to form a front with like-minded parties; of course the Left will play a leading role in it.”

“If we can play a meaningful role then we will decide whether or not to join the government. The road is open”, he said. On the possibility of him becoming the next prime minister if such a situation arose, he said: “I am working in this State. Going to Delhi is not on my mind.”

Mr. Bhattacharjee expressed doubts on whether the Trinamool Congress would remain in alliance with the Congress after the elections. It could not be presumed that the Trinamool Congress would be part of the government if the Congress is in a position to lead one at the Centre.

“I asked Pranabda whether your partner will be with you after a month. I could not get any positive response,” he said.

“There is no critical mention of the BJP in its [Trinamool’s] election manifesto. Neither BJP leader L. K. Advani had made any reference to the Trinamool leader in any of his speeches during his campaign in the State,” Mr. Bhattacharjee pointed out.

BENGAL OPPOSITION IN A DESTRUCTIVE MODE:BRINDA KARAT

KOLKATA, 5th MAY: A very typical feature of CPI (M) leader Brinda Karat’s mass rallies is that on arriving at the spot she does not climb to the dais or go near the podium waving. She makes a quick beeline for the women who usually in Bengal election assemblages sit to the front of the rallyists, plonks down, starts talking to them, and also manages to listen to their emergent as well as day-to-day problems amidst the prattle that inevitably follows.

CLOSE INTERACTION
The women -- of all ages -- find this very Communist gesture comforting in warmth as well as a bit of a thrill. Women rallyists have told us time-and-again after such tête-à-têtes with Brinda, that she allows them to bask in the reassuringly fresh air of relating themselves directly to the CPI (M) and to whatever the Party stands for-- through a top-level leader, a woman leader at that.

The series of rallies that Brinda has addressed at as far away a place at Cheliyama in Purulia to closer to ‘home’ at places around Kolkata have proved immensely popular among the common people in general for she speaks their language without the frills of political overload, explaining the politics of the evolving situation in simple, clear language. They also like the bit of class-based anger that comes out in her addresses, albeit in sober tones, in distinct and attractive phraseology. All her rallies are well populated.

MASSIVE RALLY
Addressing such a massive rally recently in the industrial zone of Khardaha in north 24 Parganas, Brinda spoke about the election battle assuming, as the days and nights go by, the proportions of a class struggle with the rich and their political formation ranged against the people. The poor are under assault, oftener than not physically, and the mass of the people are put under immensity of grinding load with the runaway prices affecting the householder every day, every month, every year. At the one end of the political spectrum stand the Congress, the BJP, and their corporate minders. At the other end are arrayed the people and their political formation like the Left Front and the CPI (M). The picture in Bengal is a reflection of the all-India scenario said Brinda who is an all-India leader of the CPI (M).

REJECT POLITICS OF DESTRUCTION
The opposition in Bengal are engaged in a politics of destruction. They would block all the paths to development, pro-people, pro-poor development. They would not hesitate to augment divisive forces ready to carve up the state again. They would frustrate all social welfare schemes. They have but one aim: to oust the popularly elected Left Front from office. They utilise the Lok Sabha elections not to speak about all-India issues but of issues, and non-issues pertaining to Bengal. They adopt a vow of silence in these terrible times. The stand that the opposition in Bengal adopts clearly marks out their class position.

Defeating all these conspiracies, in Bengal as elsewhere, a government for the workers, the kisans, the middle class, the women, the minorities, and the working masses would come up in Delhi, Brinda Karat had no doubt. Following the election the Third Front will gain and gather strength across the country. The more the reactionaries adopt tactics of violence and deceit, the more determinedly united the masses have become to ensure a victory for the third Front, concluded Brinda Karat.

THIRD FRONT’S WIN IS A CERTAINTY: SITARAM YECHURY

KOLKATA: Addressing a face-to-face session at the Kolkata press club in the afternoon of 4 May, CPI (M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was again talking of the Left support because after three phases of the nationwide polls, he was resigned to the fact that the UPA was not coming back to office.

The speaker said that pressure from the neo-liberal economic policy and the worldwide economic depression has made the common people suffer the most. The central government should have spent much more than it did on development so that employment opportunities grew. This would have accelerated the stagnant economy. Neither of the two political formations led by the Congress and BJP thought about the mass of the people. This had been proved during the tenure of the governments they successively ran.

Sitaram Yechury referred to history while answering questions on the uncertainty that faced the Third Front in terms of nomination of a Prime Minister. In 1996, the United Front was set up post-elections and H D Deve Gowda became the PM. In addition, at a different end of the political spectrum, A B Vajpayee became PM following the completion of the electoral process in 1998 when the NDA was established. It can even be said that Dr Manmohan Singh did not know that he would be chosen the prime Minister by the Congress in the wake of the 2004 Lok Sabha polls. Again, the UPA was set up post-poll.

Strongly refuting the charge that the setting up of the Third Front would benefit the BJP, Sitaram Yechury said that it was the Congress that was responsible for the rise of the BJP. Had not the Congress withdrawn support from the UF government in 1998, there was no way the BJP would have come to office. He iterated that of the 61 Left MPs who won their way to the Lok Sabha in 2004, 54 defeated the Congress. Yet, to keep the communal forces away from office, the Left chose to support a Congress-led UPA government based on a CMP. The Left is most committed of all political formations against communalism and they have carried out consistent struggle against the BJP-RSS combine in a continuous manner throughout the country.

Sitaram Yechury also spoke on the malafide Congress campaign against the Left Front government in Bengal, he ruled out the possibility of the Left supporting the Congress to form a government in Delhi, and he called upon all the socialists and former socialists to augment the Left forces nationwide.

India's unity be at stake if BJP comes to power: Buddhadeb

Krishnagar (PTI): The unity of India would be at stake if BJP returns to power at the Centre as they want only Hindus to stay in the country, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya said here today."India is the home to second largest number of Muslims in the world after Indonesia. What would be the fate of these people if BJP comes to power at the Centre," Bhattacharjee said at a poll rally.

He backed the position of Third Front in this context during the ongoing general elections."Leaders like Sarad Pawar, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Naveen Patnaik want to join Third Front. The people have lost faith on Congress as they have deprived the poor during the UPA rule," Bhattacharjee, a CPI-M politburo member, said.

On the question of the Nuclear Deal with the US, Chief Minister said, "Congress has misled people by giving false statements"."The deal amounts to selling the country to the US. No country has been benefited by allying with the US," he said.At this juncture, he said people should form a government at the Centre that would stress on independent foreign policy and help the poor people. PTI

PROSPECT FOR A THIRD FRONT GOVT BRIGHTENS EVERY DAY

BANGAON(NORTH 24 PARGANAS), 2nd May: Manik Sarkar, Tripura chief minister and a Polit Bureau member of the CPI (M) has been touring along various districts of Bengal during the phased elections taking place. Addressing two big rallies at Bongaon and Basirhat in support of the Left Front –nominated candidates, Manik sarkar said that with three phases of the elections over, the prospect for a Third Front government in Delhi was becoming brighter every day. This has made the Congress and the BJP confused, afraid, and directionless.

PRICE RISE
Manik Sarkar said that the UPA government would not react in any way to the galloping price-rise, and that it would not bother to listen to the sane advice of the left that the public distribution system in the country should be strengthened. Had the Congress done so, the price rise would not have followed in the size and sweep that it did. By brining in 14 to 18 articles of common consumption within the rationing system and ensuring their constancy of supply would have cost the central government but Rs 20 thousand crore – but the anti-people Congress government was not willing to listen, lacking the proper political will.

LEFT NOT HEEDED
On the other hand, the rich had stashed away more than Rs 74 lakh in Swiss banks to evade taxes. Simply by recovering that fund, the rationing system could have been refurbished and strengthened several times over. The people would not, then, have remained without the benefits of subsidies in essential commodities. The hoarders and the black marketers would have been let disappointed.

The price rise itself could well have been effectively stemmed. Both the Congress and the BJP stand by the side of the hoarders and the racketeers from a class point of view. The crocodile tears are only kept for the time when elections are announced. When the electoral process is finished, the old class values return to torment the poor. Manik sarkar also criticised the communal brand of politics of the BJP.

SITARAM YECHURY CALLS FOR CHANGE AT THE CENTRE IN FAVOUR OF THE THIRD FRONT

RANIGANJ (BURDWAN): ‘We need new governance for a new India,’ said CPI (M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury at Ranigunj right amidst the coal belt of Bengal. He was addressing a mass rally in the afternoon of 1st May.

REJECT ‘GADDI HASIL’ POLITICS
The entire country is now poised to throw out the ‘gaddi hasil’ brand of politics in favour of popular governance. The new government shall have people’s welfare as the locus of its policies. The certainty of the Third Front assuming control in Delhi, post election, was becoming clearer every day.

Held at the large Sihrasole grounds, the rally saw participation in their thousands of both coal mine workers and workers in the unorganised sectors, in particular. There was also a large number of adivasis who came in their traditional dressage and raised a storm of kettle drum beats.

TWO INDIAS
Sitaram Yechury said that at present a ‘Chamakta hua Bharat’ was confronted by a ‘tadapta hua Bharat.’ In the former, ‘shining,’ India, a few people and families concentrated in their hands of massive amount of wealth. More billionaires exist in that India than even in the rich and developed nation of Japan.

In the suffering India, 75% of Indians cannot have Rs 20 per day as income. Every day, 1000 children die. 755 of the mothers are the victims of anaemia. One crore of Indians have been thrown out of employment as a consequence of the big depression worldwide. The jobs of five crore more are under serious threat. In Surat in Gujarat 71 workers have taken their own lives. The textile workers sell their kidneys to survive. ‘We want a change of this India,’ said the speaker.

NEW FORMATIONS
Sitaram Yechury said that the secular formations were coming together in a new way. On the eastern coast of the country, the alliance partners have left the BJP. Laloo Prasad Yadav and Ram Bilas Paswan have created a separate morcha. The Third force will become stronger after the elections are over. Sitaram Yechury recalled to the mind of the politically conscious Bengali the words of Gopal Krishna Gokhale: what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow.

LF TO SHOW THE WAY
The Left Front government is established in Bengal after winning seven consecutive elections. Bengal shows the way to the future for the rest of the country. Sitaram Yechury called for a massive electoral triumph of the LF-nominated CPI (M) candidate from the constituency, and a sitting MP, Bangsa Gopal Chaudhuri. Other who addressed the rally besides Bangsa Gopal was CPI leader and MP, R C Singh.

LEFT UNITY TOWARDS STRENGTHENING THE ‘THIRD FRONT’

KOLKATA,27th APRIL: The wondrous desiderata of the questions of an anxious fourth estate at the ‘full bench’ media conference of the Bengal Left Front – all partners were represented – was the reason[s] why there was such accord of ground reality down to the booth level in the Left Front in the run up to the Lok Sabha polls, whereas such unison was at least marginally absent in the Panchayat elections of 2008.

LF UNITY – A POLITICAL FORMATION
All the Left Front leaders with LF chairman Biman Basu in the van gave a strong response to this repeated query from the media representatives at the Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan in the late morning of 27 April. Biman asserted that primarily the unity of the Left Front must be distinguished clearly from the ‘alliance’ of the Trinamul Congress and the Congress. The LF unity was based on class struggle and mass movements.

The Trinamulis have allowed change of hands as far as electoral partners were concerned for the fourth time now from 1998. The anomaly is that the lone Trinamul Lok Sabha MP’s seat is with the NDA as is that of its Rajya Sabha representative. The ‘unity’ with the Congress is as ephemeral as the promises scattered left and right, of the Trinamuli leadership. Any slip up in the Lok Sabha elections and the Trinamulis would be sure to slip back to NDA and BJP. There was no principle involved at any stage of the unity/disunity – it was all opportunism with a capital ‘O.’

LF APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE
Biman Basu narrated the seven-point unified appeal of the LF to the people. Biman said that the LF appeals to the people to make LF candidates victorious in all 42 Lok Sabha seats:

1.To ensure that a Third Front-led government is installed in Delhi
2.To augment self-reliant economy, independent foreign policy, and to set up a model federal structure
3.To defeat the Trinamul Congress which represents anarchism, terror, and disorder and is backed by forces of reaction both here and abroad, and their allies including Congress, as well as the communal forces that the BJP represents
4.To maintain an ambience of peace, democracy, and communal harmony
5.To ensure that there is a consolidated and integrated development of agriculture, industry, services, and that social justice prevails in every realm
6.To keep alive the Left alternative economic policy to counter the present economic crisis
7.To ensure that Bengal remains one and united

Biman also fielded questions on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s briefest of brief stopover at a central locality in Purulia Township and his bitter comparison of Kalahandi with the entire district of Purulia that reeked of untruth all the way.

UNTRUTH ABOUT PURULIA
The following statistics are relevant in support of the CPI (M) leader’s contention that comparison between Kalahandi and Purulia was odious, untrue, and motivated. Leave apart, Kalahandi, Purulia is indeed more advanced than Raeberili-Amethi, the carefully-cultivated and nurtured backyard of the Nehru-Gandhi family.

Indicators (%) Raeberili -Amethi /Purulia

People BPL 54/ 31
Urban population 07/ 11
Family with electricity 14/ 29
Landline telephone 6/ 6
Per capita expenditure Rs 385/-/ Rs 46/-
Work participation 34 /45
Work participation women 24/ 37
Literacy 62/ 63
Vaccinated children 16/ 84
Neo-natal death 83 (per 1000)/ 46 (per 1000)
Fatality below five years 160 (per 1000) /89 (per 1000)

Source: Government of India, various publications including the National Sample Survey, and the latest Household and Facilities Survey vol. III, passim.

Thus, as Biman put it, Raeberili -Amethi is perhaps more like Kalahandi and not Purulia, although there are lots of fresh developmental works needed in the Bengal district of the rain-shadowed laterite zone that, however, could not be taken up because of the successive union government’s intransigence.

LESSONS FROM THE RURAL POLLS
Veteran Forward Bloc leader Ashok Ghosh feely admitted that during the last Panchayat elections there was disunity amongst the Left Front in 9,400-odd of a total of 64,000-odd rural constituencies at three levels of Panchayat, Panchayat samity, and Zillah Parishad. Senior RSP leader Debabrata Bandyopadhyay chimed in to confess that the largest number of seat dis-arrangements was at the behest of his party vis-à-vis the CPI (M), about 7500. Such differences no longer exited, now more than ever.

Both these leaders and the Bengal CPI secretary Manjukumar Majumdar declared that the effort this time would be to send as many candidates of the Left Front as possible to Delhi to form the core of the Third Front that grew in strength with the political participation of the Left although the formation included many regional parties as well.

UNITY ROCK-SOLID
The Panchayat level disunity, the CPI leader pointed out, left behind lessons that were being put aright during the present Lok Sabha polls with the LF enjoying a rock-solid unity. Ashok Ghosh said that unity in a Left formation was part of dialectics. Did not each Party, too, has had differences in line, was the sprightly 85-year-old’s rhetorical query.

Continuing in a self-critical vein Biman said that the rural polls saw the LF gather 52.76% votes and the two Congresses, Pradesh and Trinamul 14.3% and 24.60% respectively. Yet, the LF lost out on two ZPs. Biman also emphasized that the bi-party rule or even alternate rule by one of the two bourgeois formations was over. The Third Front is about to step into office in Delhi. The LF aims to send out 42 MPs to Delhi to strengthen the Left presence in the Lok Sabha.

THIRD FRONT FOR A NEW INDIA: SITARAM YECHURY AT DARJEELING

DARJEELING: Addressing a mass rally held at the Chowkbazaar at Darjeeling Township in the late morning hours of 21 April, Sitaram Yechury, Polit Bureau member of the CPI (M) called for a New India that could only be ushered in by the Third Front when it formed a government in Delhi.

The Darjeeling rally was politically important because the CPI (M) and the Left Front had not been able to organise rally this big earlier thanks to the armed and dangerous intransigence of the separatist Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha (GJMM, as these separatists prefer t call themselves).

TWO INDIAS
Sitaram began by saying that another India existed within the fields of the present India. The India within was populated by the kisans, the workers, the middle classes, the lower middle classes, and the teeming millions of unemployed youth. The outer shell of the country comprised the multi-national corporations, the burgeoning finance capital, and the speculators.

The anti-people and anti-poor policies followed assiduously by the successive NDA and UPA régimes have seen Indian poor become poorer, and the rich, richer manifold. The time has come to make policy changes up in Delhi. The Third Front is the alternative to both these big bourgeois compositions. The Third Front stood for education, health, shelter, and employment for all, and for an independent foreign policy.

DISPARITY
The disparity in terms of wealth has reached the extent that a rich person is willing have his residence set up at a cost of thousands of crores of Rupees. On the other hand, 78% of the population have to make do with a daily income of less than Rs 20. Every day one thousand children die because of lack of health care facilities. Several crores of women who are carrying suffer from anaemia. Sitaram asked the rally whether they would be willing and continue to be witness to this national profile after 60 years of political independence.

Dwelling on the world economic depression, Sitaram said that every day one crore of people were thrown out of work, and the figure may soon reach five crore-a-day. In India, the number of kisans taking their own lives in the grinding poverty they were not willing to suffer from any longer grows bigger every day. Recently in Gujarat, 71 bidi workers had committed suicide. In Tamilnadu, workers are forced to sell off their kidneys.

POLITICAL SCENARIO
Sitaram pointed out that if one looked at the political scene, the BJP- and Congress-led alliances were unravelling from Bengal to Tamilnadu. The Third Front emerges stronger every day, every week. People will set up a government of the Third front by making Left unity stronger than ever.

CHOICE OF PM
Turning to the question of prime ministership, the speaker said that nobody knew who would finally be anointed the PM before and in the run up to the 2004 polls. The choice is decided only after the popular mandate is received. Could this happen, when a name is declared beforehand as the PM, and the people choose not to elect him at all! Sitaram reminded the rally that the present PM was not in the fray this time around. ‘We have not put a particular person as the projected PM because we have deep respect for the people’s verdict and for the Indian Constitution.’

‘MATCH FIXING’ TO FLOP
However much ‘match fixing’ the Congress and the BJP go in for in terms of capturing the Delhi masnad, the electorate of India is poised to create new history by voting the Third Front to office. Sitaram asked the rally to vote for the Left Front to solidify the people’s unity and to defeat the separatists. He accused the BJP of misdirecting the emotional outlook of the hill people by taking up the cause of the GJMM. The people of Bengal would not allow the conspiracy to divide up Bengal again to succeed, Sitaram Yechury concluded.

THE THIRD FRONT SHALL EMERGE STRONGER, POST-ELECTION

KOLKATA,16th APRIL: Queried repeatedly by the media at a briefing that Biman Basu, senior CPI (M) leader addressed late in the evening of 16 April at the Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan, on the prospects of the Third Front, the speaker quoted his favourite Bengali colloquial saying that it would be seen after the Lok Sabha elections as to ‘koto dhaney koto chaal,’ or the reality of the political situation that would obtain post-poll.

BRIGHT PROSPECTS

The forces that had earlier pooh-poohed the Third Front were now ready with an outlook of soft obeisance towards it, politically speaking. They have realised, as the polls commenced, that their pre-election perception would undergo a change as far as the political circumstances, which would rigorously, inevitably evolve—and the Third Front surely stood to gain and not lose out when the votes would start to be counted.

Turning to Bengal, Biman Basu started off by pointing to the crowded nature of the candidates’ list this time in the North Bengal districts where the first phase of polling would take place on 30 April, e.g., Coochbehar (10 contestants), Alipurduar (8), Jalpaiguri-SC (10), Darjeeling (10), Raigunj (12), Balurghat (8), and Maldah north and Maldah south (9 each).

There was a similarity of this with the situation obtaining in the western Bengal districts that, too, would go in for polls on the same day, like Ghatal (7), Jhargram-ST (8), Midnapore (8), Purulia (14), Bankura (11), and Bishnupur (7). One notes that these are the ‘disturbed districts’ in the sense that in the north, GJM, GNLF (recently resuscitated complete with separatist slogan-mongering), KLO, and KPP are active, supported by both the Trinamulis and the Pradesh Congress.

In the laterite zone, on the other hand, the Trinamulis and their ‘Maoist’ minders have a foul run, killing, kidnapping CPI (M) workers, burning down Party offices, and generally keeping the people thoroughly terrorised especially in the jangal mahal -- and threatening the state LF government with ‘dire consequence’ once the elections see the presence of either government officials or the police concluding para-military forces.

GAME-PLAN OF VIOLENCE

Biman Basu finds a link between the violence that preceded the polls in these areas and the unusually large number of candidates put up. Is it done to confuse the people? Is it a plan to ‘harm’ some of the wild-card, planted candidates and then make a mockery of the poll process?

In the run up to the polls, the LF chairman calls upon all democratic-minded people to foil the game-plan to divide up Bengal once again. The forces of division and violence must be isolated and the democratic norms rigorously adhered to everywhere.

Biman again commented that to the Trinamulis and the Pradesh Congress, the Lok Sabha polls were akin to Assembly elections as far as electioneering and modalities of campaign were concerned. They would not touch the national issues and would only concentrate on harping anti-CPI (M) slogan-mongering whether in their ‘election manifestos’ or their speeches delivered with particularly alarming brand of violence. Biman called upon the people of Bengal to keep up the past traditions and to keep the poll process peaceful, ignoring provocations and even attacks. All attempts at anarchy and disorder must be countered by mass mobilisation.

‘TRUTH’ AND ‘HONESTY’

Biman also launched a scathing attack on the recent and large cut-outs of the Trinamuli chief (the total number of cut-out put up across the state is just over 21,500!) that carry the message that ‘she is the symbol of truth, the icon of honesty.’ Biman merely quoted the Trinamuli ‘manifesto’ that states at one place that eight crore of people in nine districts have to drink arsenic-contaminated water. Even if her contention of arsenic poisoning is taken at face value (that ‘fact’ too is of course a lie), would she say that the rest of the 10 districts are inhabited by a mere 50 lakh people, since the latest census figured put the total population of Bengal at 8.5 crore.

The ‘symbol of truth,’ also makes another horrible faux pas. In the ‘manifesto’ and in her speeches she points out how a LF minister while attending a divisional meeting of officials at Maldah arranged for A luncheon that cost—wait for it – Rs 12,5 crore. How low, we ask, can one go with a puerile hatred for the Communists? There can be no doubt that the electorate of Bengal would provide a fitting reply to such ‘pieces of precious truth’ on behalf of the ‘icon of truthfulness’ when the polling starts over the three phases in Bengal.

BRIGHTENING PROSPECTS FOR THE THIRD FRONT AT THE LOK SABHA POLLS

KOLKATA,14th APRIL: General Secretary of the CPI (M) Prakash Karat firmly nailed the lies about a bi-partisan contest in the 2009 elections to the Indian parliament. The UPA was unravelling. The NDA was missing its partners. Only the Third Front was growing in strength. There was another imperative. The strength of the non-BJP, non-Congress forces could never be judged until the election results were declared.

Very many of the political parties outside of the two main bourgeois formations, in government in states yet not officially declared constituents of the Third Front, would then firm the ground on which the Third Front stood. Prakash Karat was in address to an impressively arrayed corps of the Kolkata media at the Press Club that stands right amidst the green of the summer maidan on a pleasant breezy afternoon of 14 April.

The CPI (M) Polit Bureau member said that the Third Front was as far from the ‘illusion’ that the corporate media would describe it as possible. The contest would be a three-cornered fight in most seats, indeed in the bulk of the constituencies. Of the UPA partners, most were in contest against the Congress bar the DMK.

The Third Front is made up of ten political parties and they have come to a political understanding regarding the Lok Sabha polls. Following the elections, more parries would join in, a common minimum programme drawn up, and the prospect of forming a government at the centre would all the time become more and more of a realistic proposition. The Third Front emphasises four principles, viz., pro-people economic policy, secularism, independent foreign policy, and strengthening of the federal structure.

On the understanding at the present juncture, the speaker pointed out citing Jaya Jayalalitha’s recent statement that the regional parties would much prefer to form state government on their own, of their own without tailing the two big political formations, the BJP and the Congress. Regional parries already have excellent record of accomplishment in running state governments in Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu, and Orissa besides in the three Left-led states. There was no doubt that such regional parties, coming together, would be able to run a government at the centre, and with pro-people efficiency.

On being repeatedly probed for the name of the prospective prime ministerial candidate of the Third Front once it would win the polls, Prakash Karat said that such a question could only be raise and mitigated once the leaders of the Third Front sat together post poll. Prakash Karat also said that the Left had had good relations with the regional parries earlier as well as in 1996, and the principal aim of the Congress and the BJP had been, and still is, to destabilise such alliances. Prakash Karat also pointed out that the question whether the left would be able emote the correct role, come a Third Front government would be far more important than the numerical strength of the Left in the new parliament.

Dismissing any political understanding post poll with the Congress, Prakash Karat said that the presence of the Third Front was also politically antithetical to the communal forces as the BJP-RSS combine. The moving away of the BJD from BJP in Orissa has isolated the communal forces there in that state. An alliance with Left participation was fighting the Congress and the BJP in Andhra Pradesh. Kerala witnesses the usual fight out between the LDF and the UDF with the communal forces losing ground.

On Kerala, Prakash karat said that there was no alliance between the LDF and Madani-led PDP, the latter being engaged in supporting the LDF on its own initiative. Madani has been acquitted of all charged slapped earlier on him in the Coimbatore case. The Congress and the UDF keeps in close touch with the real terrorist organisation with the innocuous name and style of the NDF.

Dismissing as useless the ‘debate’ on who is a strong prime minister and who is not, Prakash Karat said that the more important thing to remember was that the strict stance of the Left in and out of parliament on the so-called reforms had saved the nation from the disastrous after-effects of the great depression spreading across large parts of the world. The Congress was unable, thanks to the left opposition, to expose the sectors of the economy vital to the nation and the people like the pension funds and insurance as well as banking fully to the forays of international finance capital.

Nailing the so-called ‘clean’ Singh governance, the CPI (M) leader pointed to the missile deal with Israel even as the investigation into the earlier Barak missile deal was not complete, the telecom scandal involving upgradation of the cell phone network to 3G, and the instance of bribery in the parliament for purpose of winning the confidence motion. All this will be featured in the election campaign of the Left and of the Third Front, the CPI (M) general secretary assured. He pointed out that there was also need to increase international political pressure on Pakistan so that it was willing to take effective steps against terrorism.

Describing the upcoming Bengal polls as a tough fight, Prakash Karat said that the Left Front would win a decisive electoral triumph, he had no doubt. Nandigram or any other single issue would not come up as an issue of importance in the Bengal polls. The vote will be conducted based on all-India issues in the main. Prakash Karat condemned the move of the BJP to run its candidate from Darjeeling with help from the separatist GJM.

A THIRD FRONT GOVERNMENT WILL STAND AGAINST IMPERIALIST FORAYS

KOLKATA, 14th APRIL: Once a Third Front government comes into office in Delhi, and the prospects for this to happen were getting more and more illumined with the passage of every week, the days of imperialist forays in India would be severely numbered. The same would apply for the forces of religious fundamentalism of every kind. This was said by Prakash Karat, CPI (M) general secretary at the rally organised at Kolkata’s Mahajati Sadan by the Shahid Yadgaar Samity on the occasion of the Jalianwalabagh Day in the late afternoon.

Prakash Karat also said that the new governance once it assumed office would cancel the three ‘deals’ the Singh government had worked out with the US. These were the defence deal, the nuclear deal, and the deal on following the US dictates in running the Indian economy.

Launching an attack on the Hindu fundamentalist and communal forces as represented politically by the BJP-RSS combine, Prakash Karat said that L K Advani had recently written letters asking support to 1000 sadhus and sants from the list prepared by the RSS. In the letter, the BJP leader had assured the religious persons that he would form a committee comprising their ranks once a BJP-led government assumed office in Delhi. At the same time, the BJP-RSS axis has kept up its assaulting forays on minority communities of every kind. The Congress has always compromised with this force of violent communalism.

The Rajinder Sachar committee despite its weaknesses has exposed the conditions of the Muslims in India. The Left had called upon the UPA government to draw up a sub-plan for the minority communities in the 11th planning period and had also demanded that the UPA government set aside 15% budgetary allocation for the minority communities. The same demand has been raised by the Bengal chief minister before the central government. The central government has expressed its inability to comply with the requisition. The self-same Congress now sheds crocodile’s tears for the minorities as the elections approach.

In Left-led states, the state governments have set up plans for the minorities to the extent it is possible given the financial handicap within which these governments have perforce to function. There could not be an overall development of the minorities in India if the central government chose to ignore the issue with a callous outlook.

Prakash Karat said that there was continuous infiltration of imperialism into every sphere of the nation, be it economy, culture, and society as a whole. For this, both the NDA and the UPA central governments are responsible. The people fought the imperialist forces 62 years ago. Even after gaining political independence, the struggle against imperialism continued. A wide unity of the masses must be built up and the imperialist forces fought off, concluded Prakash Karat who also released a CD of election campaign material. Present at the rally also were state secretary of the CPI (M) Biman Basu and the two Left Front-nominated CPI (M) candidates from Kolkata, north and south, Mohd Salim and Rabin Deb. All the speakers recalled the Jalianwalabagh massacre and said that the struggle that followed provided an element of strength in the anti-imperialist fight in India.

BUDDHADEB ARGUES STRONGLY IN FAVOUR OF A LEFT-LED ‘THIRD FRONT’ GOVT IN DELHI

KOLKATA,12th APRIL: Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was in address to a gathering of the intellectual crème de la crème of Kolkata and Bengal on the morning of 12 April at the packed Sisir Manch downtown metropolis. The rally saw participation by persons of littérature, painters, theatre-and-drama personalities, poets, novelists, columnists, artistes of every form, as well as vocal and instrumental maestros. Noted poet Krishna Dhar presided.

The CPI (M) looks forward to formation of Left-led ‘Third Front’ governance at the centre, said Buddhadeb in clear tenor, mincing neither word nor emotion. The government must be one that the Left with their comprehensive agenda of pro-poor development, secularism, democratic sensibilities, and their strong and declared preference for the maintenance of the integrity and sovereignty of the nation. The Third Front is filled with reality and stands as a viable alternative to the two principal bourgeois formations led by the authoritarian Congress and the religious fundamentalist and divisive BJP.

Buddhadeb pointed out that the constituents and potential partners of the Third Front were in fact in governance in very many Indian states. The Congress is witness to desertion by its allies and friends even after sticking to office for five years. The weaknesses of the Congress governance were noticeable and did not escape the sight and sentiment of its legion of allies.

The Congress would not do much for the poor—it was more interested in fashioning a compliant alliance with the forces of US imperialism on the nuclear ‘deal.’ Food production goes down, kisans commit suicide at ever higher, frightening statistics, rate – a total of over 1.8 lakh of the sons of the soil have taken their own lives by their own hand because of the simple avoidable situation whereby procurement prices were not available to any viable proportions. The farmers continue to choose death over starvation and disintegration of families in large parts of India – the Left-led states being exceptions of relief for the peasants.

In a situation where the Congress is in no position to even repeat what was a poor performance during the 2004 Lok Sabha polls – where it had won but 145 seats – even the so-called political backyard of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh has slipped out of its hands in a major way. The Congress is a poor third in most states now more than ever in terms of popularity – electoral and otherwise.

One reason why the popularity of the Congress is on the rapid slide of waning can be explained by the Dr Arjun Sengupta report where it is said that the daily wage of 705 of the people the country is less than Rs 20. At the other end of the spectrum is the existence of four of the richest ten persons of the world. This glaring contradiction has virtually wiped off the image the Congress seeks to build up before the people, as the Lok Sabha polls approach. No wonder then the Congress finds itself friendless, alone, isolated, and on the decline.

On the other hand, stand the menace called the BJP-RSS combine. They have started to propagate as if terrorism is synonymous with Islam, which of course suits their Hindu fundamentalism. This combine stands against the secular fabric of the nation itself. Subsequently the Malegaon explosion has proved the connection between the BJP-RSS brand of Hindu fundamentalism and terrorism. BJP, too, stands witness to desertion of ranks of its allies. The BJD in Orissa is an important recent example in this regard. The BJP must not be allowed to crawl itself to office, for if they do, the nation itself will be under great danger.

Buddhadeb continued say that in 2004, the left had taken the risk of supporting the Congress from the outside to prevent the BJP from coming to office. This time, the Left calls for the Third Front based not on personalities but principles and policies. The Third front looks forward to pro-people outlook and policies. The Left looks to pro-poor developmental programmes, strengthening of the rationing system, and increase of plan allocation in such basic subjects as health and education.

The centre-state relationship must be retooled to provide more power, political and financial, to the states. There should be comprehensive ambience of democracy and secularism. An independent foreign policy should be put in place. These policies would only fructify if the Third front government that would come to office at the end of the Lok Sabha elections, were led by the Left. For this purpose, said Buddhadeb, a larger number of Left Front MPs must be elected from all over the country especially from the three Left-ruled states of Kerala, Tripura, and Bengal.

In Bengal, the opposition is out to confuse the outlook of the poor and the adivasis. Forces of separatism have started to encourage divisive elements in Bengal, in the hill areas and in the western districts of the state. The Left Front is not weak-kneed to these dangerous developments. It depends more on the power of the people that on that of arms and violence. Buddhadeb also told the gathering that the Left Front believed in a form of cultural pluralism. The different cultural centres of Bengal like the Natya Academy and the Bangla Academy are run by the Left Front government with this perspective firmly in place.

UPA and NDA will lose partners after the polls: Buddhadeb

Kolkata, March 29: Both the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will lose partners after the Lok Sabha polls leading to the consolidation of the Third Front, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said Sunday.

“The efforts to cobble up a non-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and non-Congress alternative will gain a more distinct shape in the post poll situation. Partners will come out of both the UPA and the NDA,” Bhattacharjee, a Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader, said in an interview to his party’s mouthpiece Ganashakti.

“The new force that will see consolidation in that scenario must have a common minimum programme,” he added.Bhattacharjee said the leftists will have to play a role in such a situation. “We will perform our duty.”

The CPI-M politburo member felt the Third Front had become relevant now both in terms of its strength and number of constituents.“But this is not enough. We have to consolidate the front by holding discussions. The process has already started, and such dialogue will continue even after the polls.”

In an obvious reference to the Congress and the BJP ridiculing the Third Front for its large number of prime ministerial hopefuls, Bhattacharjee said adopting the right programme was the main pre-requisite for forming an alternative government.“The leftists are laying stress on drawing up such a programme, and not on any party or leader,” he said.

Bhattacharjee said the leftists will take a call on joining a Third Front government after reviewing the post-poll situation.He said the leftists’ main aim in the Lok Sabha elections is to form an alternative non-Congress and non-BJP government. He claimed that there was a distinct possibility of the leftists, and secular and democratic regional parties getting a majority.

THIRD FRONT SHALL DOMINATE THE LOK SABHA RESULTS: BIMAN BASU

KOLKATA, 28th MARCH: A reality now, more than ever, rather than a theoretical compose the Third Front with the Left in the van shall direct the shape of the Lok Sabha that shall be formed after the Lok sabha election. This was Biman Basu, state secretary, Bengal CPI (M) at the massive convention of Left student-youth in Kolkata at a packed indoor Stadium in the afternoon hours of 28 March, the anti-unemployment day.

Biman Basu said in clear tones that both the bourgeois alliances, one led by the Congress the other by the religious fundamentalist BJP, were breaking apart in front of their own eyes, and they stand helpless. The Third Front gains strength continuously and is spreading its political wings across a larger and ever larger footprint across India.

Explaining that it had been the Left students-youth organisations that had commenced observing the anti-unemployment day from back in 1973, the speaker said that the young generation of the Left had also played an exemplary role in the struggle against quasi-fascism and lumpen terror that Bengal bled under during the 1970s. The relevance of 28 March shall continue to be relevant until an end was wrought of exploitation, deprivation, and the ruling class control over the means of production.

Extending his arguments into analysing the massive economic recession that has slowed down production and has resulted in billions of people losing job especially in the capitalist world, the Bengal LF chairman said that more than a hundred million young men and women stand to lose employment in India itself over the next year or so. By 2020, the rate of unemployment itself shall reach 30% in the sub-continent. In just over a decade’s worth of time-scale India shall be burdened with the presence of eleven crore jobless youth.

As we speak today, said the senior CPI (M) leader, India has lost 1.5 million men and women in the organised sector alone. Five lakh people connected with the once-lucrative ornaments trade and calling has become without a viable means of livelihood. The sunrise Info-Tech industry is expected to shed 50 thousand jobs, come the next half-a-year. BPO will see 2.5 lakh jobs go down the drain, adding to the burden of joblessness.

The country groans under misery of the financial kind because of the fatuous way the ruling classes have clung to the capitalist path and has seen the light at the end of the tunnel in ‘globalisation.’ The Left has cautioned the people during the earlier Lok Sabha polls against the expected facet of the Congress policy of towing the economic policy of the NDA régime, and that proved disastrous for the nation, especially for the toiling masses.

The Left has lent its outside support to the UPA governance strictly based on the few pro-people aspects of the CMP, aspects that the Congress did not follow while selling the nation downstream to imperialism and its lackeys. This resulted in the correct decision of the CPI (M) and the Left in withdrawing support.
Biman also mentioned the u holy alliances that had come together in Bengal against the CPI (M) and the Left Front. As he put, the masses shall bid good night to the forces of darkness whose surreptitious alliance was forged not in the broad day light but in the darkness of the night. Biman was also thoroughly critical of the way the opposition had suddenly started to shed what were clearly tears of sham and falsity for the adivasis.

The opposition was also playing the Communal card as dangerously as the young stalwart of the BJP was doing with imp unity at the national level—and getting away with it. Biman called upon the youth to be politically active in dealing a blow to the hopes and evil ambitions of the opposition in the Lok Sabha polls all over Bengal. A win in Bengal for the CPI (M) and the Left would improve the prospects that much more for the Left-led Third Front. Student and youth leaders, too, addressed the vast gathering, a gathering that was big enough to take a long time to disperse.

Third Front's prospect brightening, says Buddhadeb

Siliguri (WB),28th March : With the desertions of certain partners in the UPA and NDA, the prospect of the Third Front faring better in the Lok Sabha polls is "brightening fast", West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said on Sunday. "The poll prospect of the Left-led Third Front is brightening fast and it will form the government at the Centre," he said in a party workers' meet at Bidhannagar, about 35 km from here.

Mr. Bhattacharjee criticised the Congress for negotiating with the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha on seeking the hill organisation's support for its candidate Dawa Narbula in the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat. "It is pathetic to see that the Congress has kept aside its political stand to bag one seat," he said.

The CPI(M) leader ruled out any division of West Bengal to create Gorkhaland as demanded by GJM. "The state government is ready for further development of Darjeeling Hills, but there must not be any separation," he said.

He criticised Opposition parties for creating controversy over acquisition of farm land to set up industry in West Bengal and said they had been constantly opposing development in the state.
Blaming the Congress for rise in prices of essentials, he alleged 180,000 farmers had committed suicide during the UPA rule on account of its anti-poor policies.

Forward Bloc ready to join government this time

Kolkata, 20th March: The Forward Bloc released its manifesto for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls on Friday and said that if Third Front comes to power at the Centre, it will join the government. At a press conference, party general secretary Debabrata Biswas said, “The Third Front will come to power and we will join the government.” He said that the Third Front will not project any one as its prime ministerial candidate. “The question of selecting a prime ministerial candidate for a non-BJP and non-Congress combination will arise only after the election. There is no dearth of leaders for the top post,” Biswas said.

He added: “Even Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati has said that she would help in consolidating the Third Front against the Congress and the BJP and the question of choosing a prime minister can be taken up after the elections.” Biswas said that his party will prevent FDI in retail sector if it comes to power. He said his party is not averse to Chandrababu Naidu or any other party in the Third Front though the Left parties had labeled Naidu as pro- America. “But all that is past and he has also changed his stand,” Biswas added.

The Bloc will contest in 23 Lok Sabha seats —- three each in West Bengal, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir and Madhya Pradesh, four in Bihar, two each in Delhi and Jharkhand, one each in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka.

Buddha pitches for non-Cong, non-BJP govt at Centre

Kolkata, March 19: Pitching for a non-Congress, non-BJP alternative at the Centre after the Lok Sabha polls, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Thursday said a majority of the people in the country does not want the Congress or BJP to be in power.

Replying to a governor's address in the assembly, he said, "After the last Lok Sabha polls, Left had supported UPA to keep BJP out of power. But the Congress, which led the UPA, reciprocated by "bringing in US into the country". He said Left wanted an alternative government to be based on four principles: pro-people programmes, a balanced federal structure, secularism and independent foreign policy.

Blaming the US for the global recession, he claimed, the Left parties had been able to save the country's insurance and banking sectors from its effect by preventing government from opening these sectors to foreign investments.