Power utilities in WB to register a net revenue collection of Rs 8,289.19 cr

KOLKATA, 20 March: State-owned power utilities in West Bengal are slated to register a net revenue collection of Rs 8,289.19 crore during 2008-09 with an estimated net profit of Rs 289.47 crore. Accordingly, enthused by the decent revenue collection projections, the West Bengal government on Friday increased plan allocation for the power sector from Rs 2,061.73 crore during 2008-09 to Rs 2,376.4 crore for 2009-10.

This, however, is inclusive of internal resources of the power utilities. The state-owned power utilities include West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Co, West Bengal State Electricity Transmission Co, West Bengal Power Development Corporation Ltd and Durgapur Projects Ltd.

In his budget speech for 2009-10, West Bengal's finance minister Asim Dasgupta said: "Special emphasis has been given to improve the internal efficiency of power utilities in the state. As a result, the plant load factor of these power utilities has increased from 53.2% in 2001-02 to an estimated 63% in the current year.

In addition, the transmission and distribution loss has also been reduced from 31.1% from 2001-02 to 22% in the current year." Mr Dasgupta also claimed that rural electrification has reached 99.2%. "Out of 37,910 villages in the state, electricity has reached as many as 37,606 villages till February 28, 2009. The state government has now set a deadline for completing the task of providing power to each household of every villages within 11th Plan Period."

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.

Vodafone crosses 7 million subscriber mark in WB

KOLKATA,19 Mar 2009: Vodafone Essar on Thursday crossed the 7 million subscriber mark in West Bengal. With statewide coverage spanning over 3253 cities and towns and some 31,000 villages, the company’s total subscriber base in West Bengal has shot up from 4 million in February 2008 to the present 7 million-plus. Vodafone Essar is the biggest cellular service provider in Kolkata and West Bengal circles.

Land alloted in Singur not cancelled: Buddhadeb

KOLKATA, 19 Mar 2009: West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee told the state Assembly on Thursday that the land lease agreement between WBIDC and Tata Motors for the 997 acres alloted in Singur had not yet been cancelled. But he also maintained that the state government is determined to use the Singur land for setting up a cluster of industrial units.

In response to issues raised in governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi’s inaugural address, Mr Bhattacharjee assured the House that his government was unwilling to deprive the people of Singur who had given land for the Tata Nano project. "Our government has received a host of proposals from both domestic and foreign investors who wish to set up their units in Singur. We are working on those proposals and will inform you about our plans after we take a final decision," the chief minister said.

Mr Bhattacharjee also claimed that "the Tatas were forced to quit Singur because of violent and destructive agitation by the irresponsible opposition party" in West Bengal. "Now attempts are being made to confuse the people on the utilisation of the land. Demands are also being made for return of the Singur land. This bit is certain that the land will not be returned as the character of the land has already changed and the land given to the Tatas cannot be used for agriculture. We will use the land for setting up new industry," Mr Bhattacharjee mentioned. "We don’t want to keep the Singur people in absolute darkness and we are very clear about the fact that land at Singur will be used for industrialisation," the chief minister said.

The chief minister also assured the House that his government would proceed with plans for setting up the proposed chemical hub at Nayachara. "Setting up the chemical hub at Nayachara is not our government’s proposal. The Centre had invited proposals from several states for setting up PCPIRs and we did not wish to miss the opportunity. The Cabinet in its last meeting had cleared the Nayachara chemical hub and we will proceed with this," the chief minister said.

Mr Bhattacharjee also said that he had thanked the external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee and chemicals and fertiliser minister Ramvilas Paswan for clearing the Nayachara chemical hub. Interestingly, the principal opposition party, Trinamool Congress had boycotted the chief minister’s reply to the debate on the governor’s address. Trinamool Congress has already announced that they will oppose the chemical hub at Nayachara.

Japan trip for Nayachar

Calcutta, March 19: A state team will travel to Japan and South Korea to net investors for the Nayachar and Haldia chemical hub. Led by industry secretary Sabyasachi Sen, the team will be part of a larger delegation of the Union ministry for chemicals and fertilizers.

It will meet top officials of Mitsubishi Chemicals, Mitsui Chemicals and Itochu Corporation in Tokyo from March 23-25, followed by meetings with Korean companies — LG Chemicals and Hyundai Chemicals — for two days in Seoul. “We are going to meet officials of the rank of president and above of these companies,” Sen said. The team will leave on Saturday night.

The Union ministry delegation will have representatives from Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, too. The trip is part of a marketing support initiative of the Centre to the three states where petrochemical hubs are coming up. Industry chamber Ficci coordinated the initiative. The Bengal team will have Nandini Chakravorty, the executive director of the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation, which is an infrastructure partner in the Nayachar hub with Indonesia’s Salim Group.

Swapan Bhowmik, the managing director of Haldia Petrochemicals, and Sanjay Malhotra, a director of the Delhi-based Cals Refinery that is setting up a unit in Haldia, will also be in the team. An official of Singapore’s Jurong Corporation, which set up Asia’s largest chemical hub there, will be with the Bengal team. Jurong is preparing the plan for Nayachar.

In order to break the language barrier, the state has prepared all presentations in Japanese and Korean. “We have translated all documents for the project in the two languages,” Chakravorty said.This trip will be followed by a similar one to the US. Today, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee told the Assembly that the government was just waiting for a letter from the Centre approving the Nayachar chemical hub. “The hub will change the complexion of the state as many refineries and downstream projects will come up,” he said.

West Bengal yet to receive centre’s formal approval on chemical hub

KOLKATA, 18 Mar 2009: The West Bengal government has not yet received an official communication on the recent Union Cabinet clearance for the proposed Nayachara chemical hub. This was indicated by West Bengal’s commerce & industry minister Nirupam Sen in the state Assembly on Wednesday.

Replying to a question by opposition leader Partha Chatterjee, the state industry minister said: "There is no immediate possibility of laying the foundation stone for the proposed hub. We have not yet received clearance from the environment department for the said chemical hub and there is no real difference between the chemical hub and the Petroleum, Chemical and Petrochemicals Investment Region (PCPIR). "I have read in newspapers that the Union Cabinet has given the green signal to the Nayachara chemical hub. But they (the Union government) have not yet informed us in writing," Mr Sen pointed out.

He added that the proposed chemical hub would come up on 250.19 acres and 40 per cent of the land would be used for chemical units. Mr Sen reiterated that 12 lakh people would get direct and indirect employment at the proposed hub which will produce polythene, auto components, synthetic rubber and synthetic fibre which will be used by the garments industry. The Union Cabinet at its last meeting on February 23 had reportedly cleared the proposed chemical hub at Nayachara. The Cabinet session was presided over by external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee as the Prime Minister was then indisposed.

Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress has already announced that it will not allow the proposed hub to come up in the pear-shaped Nayachara island near Haldia. Party chief Mamata Banerjee who held an election rally in Nandigram on March 14, had made it clear that her party would not welcome the chemical hub at Nayachara. In fact, the Trinamool Congress candidate from the Kanthi Lok Sabha seat, who also addressed the gathering on March 14, announced that they would everything it took to prevent the Nayachara chem hub from taking off.

However, it is nearly certain that the state government will not step on the gas in expediting the Nayachara venture as Lok Sabha elections have already been announced. But the government might indeed take up the issue after election results are out and the new government in Delhi is formed.

Calumny in the Name of Research

A Rebuttal of the Trinamul Congress funded “Study” on West Bengal.

A report titled Transforming West Bengal - Changing the Agenda for an Agenda for Change has recently been released by Indicus Analytics, a Delhi based private sector market research firm, authored by Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari. The report is a nothing but a motley combination of extremely selective reporting and arbitrary interpretation of data and deliberate omission of some obvious and easily available facts. It is worth noting the following from the document:
“Disclaimer: The information contained in this document represents the current views of the author(s) as of the date of publication. This White Paper is for informational purposes only. The author(s) and Indicus make no warranties, express, implied or statutory, as to the information in this document.” (emphasis added)

In other words, the publisher or the authors make no claim as to the veracity of the information they claim to provide! The real purpose of such a dubious report can be understood from its diagnosis of the “diseases” in West Bengal:
What we have just described as the five key diseases are perhaps not the diseases at all. They are symptoms. The key disease is somewhere else. It is the Left Front itself. The Left Front government is like gangrene. It cannot be cured. It has to be excised out.

It is clear that the authors have laboured to compile and present some data only as a subterfuge for their sectarian motivations. While this report does not deserve a serious academic reading or critique, below we present a short rebuttal of the report based on some obvious facts.

Economic Growth: It has been repeatedly alleged in the report that GSDP growth in West Bengal has not been fast enough. However, over the 1990s West Bengal registered the second highest rate of aggregate SDP growth among major States (nearly 7%), after Karnataka. In the current decade, the GSDP growth rate has slowed down somewhat but still remains above 6%. Strangely, the authors have compared the growth experience of only one State, i.e. Maharashtra with West Bengal to show that the latter has not grown fast enough. This is not a valid comparison given the very different historical and geographical contexts of the two States. One has to just consider the fact that while for Maharashtra, per capita Plan Allocation by the Centre increased from Rs. 98.73 in the 3rd Five-year Plan to Rs. 6890.59 in the 10th Five-year Plan, for West Bengal it increased from Rs. 71.63 in the 3rd Five-year Plan to Rs.3571.20 in the 10th Five-year Plan (See Mohun Guruswamy et. al., Economic Growth and Development in West Bengal: Reality versus Perception, EPW, May 21, 2005). Over and above the discrimination in the allocation of Central Plan outlays, the policies of freight equalization and industrial licensing were used by the Congress Governments at the Centre to prevent the flow of private sector investment into States like West Bengal while encouraging investments in Maharashtra and Gujarat. Industrial growth picked up in West Bengal only after 1991, when these policies were abandoned by the Centre and since then West Bengal has grown faster than all the other States in the eastern region. It is noteworthy that in terms of agricultural growth post-1977, West Bengal has remained one of the best performing States in the country.

According to the Eleventh Plan Document, agricultural growth in West Bengal during 1995-96 to 2004-05 was 2.67%, which was the third highest among all major States (after Bihar at 3.51% and Andhra Pradesh at 2.69%), and way above the national average of 1.85%. Maharashtra’s agricultural growth during this period was 0.1% only (Karnataka 0.03% and Gujarat 0.48%). While the acute agrarian crisis has led to farmers’ suicides in several States, especially Maharashtra, West Bengal has remained relatively immune from such acute distress. In fact, West Bengal continues to perform well in agriculture registering 5.14% agricultural growth in 2007-08, while the national average was 4.5%. It is not surprising that the report, given its motivations, has carefully avoided any detailed discussion of agricultural performance. How can any analysis of GSDP growth, which ignores agriculture where the majority of the workforce is employed, be taken seriously?

Poverty Reduction: The biggest faux pas in the report is the assertion that West Bengal has not been successful in poverty reduction compared to other States. The poverty estimates of the Planning Commission have been rightly criticized from several quarters for being a gross underestimation. However, the authors of the report do not subscribe to any such critical views vis-à-vis the official poverty estimates. Rather, page 17 of the report, itself provides two charts based upon Planning Commission’s poverty estimates, which shows that rural poverty in West Bengal declined from 73.2% (percentage of persons below poverty line) in 1973-74 to 28.6% in 2004-05, as against the decline of poverty at the all-India level from 56.4% in 1973-74 to 28.3% in 2004-05. Urban poverty in West Bengal declined from 34.7% in 1973-74 to 14.8% in 2004-05, as against the decline of urban poverty at the all-India level from 49% in 1973-74 to 25.7% in 2004-05. Despite their own chart showing this, the authors conclude that “West Bengal’s success in reducing rural poverty has been far less than what one might tend to think”.

Going by the Planning Commission’s estimate, however, West Bengal has achieved creditable success in poverty reduction, which among the best in the country. In fact the Eleventh Plan document notes (Vol.3, Ch.4, p.80):
In some States, the absolute numbers of the poor in the population has actually increased over the last three decades: in Uttar Pradesh (including Uttaranchal) from 535.7 lakhs in 1973 to 626 lakhs in 2004–05; in Rajasthan from 128.5 lakhs to 134.9 lakhs; in Maharashtra from 287.4 lakhs to 317.4 lakhs, and in Nagaland from 2.9 lakhs to 4.0 lakhs. The total number of poor has also increased in Madhya Pradesh (including Chhattisgarh) taken together from 276 lakhs to 341 lakhs and in Bihar (including Jharkhand) from 370 lakhs to 485.5 lakhs over the same period. There are many States where the number of poor overall has remained roughly constant over the last two decades: Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa, and Mizoram. However, there are also States that have succeeded in reducing the absolute number of the poor in rural areas over the three decades from 1973 to 2004–05: Andhra Pradesh from 178.2 lakhs to 64.7 lakhs; Karnataka from 128.4 lakhs to 75 lakhs; Kerala from 111.4 lakhs to 32.4 lakhs; Tamil Nadu from 172.6 lakhs to 76.5 lakhs; and West Bengal from 257.9 lakhs to 173.2 lakhs, and Assam and Gujarat to a much smaller extent. These are the relative success stories in reducing the numbers of the poor in India.

How the report could miss this point despite reproducing charts on poverty reduction based on the same Planning Commission estimates is anybody’s guess.

Land Reforms: The report has deliberately avoided any discussion on land reforms and redistribution in West Bengal under the Left Front Government, which has been the single most important contributor to rural poverty reduction in the State. While net area sown in West Bengal as a proportion of net area sown in India was only 3.9% in 2003-04, West Bengal has accounted for 22.6% of the total land distributed in the country as a whole since Independence, and more than half (54.5 %) of the total number of gainers from land distribution programmes in the entire country.

Table 2.1: Agricultural land distributed and land reform beneficiaries,
India and West Bengal

India West Bengal Share of W.B.(per cent)

Area distributed under land reform (acres)
49,64,995 11,22,116 22.6
Number of beneficiaries
54,57,522 29,71,857 54.5
Source: Budget Statement, Demand No. 36 for the year 2008-09, Land and Land Reforms Department, Government of West Bengal
Note: All-India figures are as on September 2007; West Bengal as on 15 February 2008

Of course, the total number of gainers from all the various land reform programmes in the state is even more. As on 15 February 2008, they also included recorded bargadars (1,510,657) and recipients of homestead land (1,557,151), bringing the total to 5,039,665 beneficiaries. This means more than half of rural households have benefited from land reforms in the State since 1977. The report has wilfully disregarded this vital aspect of the development experience in West Bengal under Left rule.

Per Capita Income and Regional Disparity: The report alleges that West Bengal has very low per capita income compared to most States in India. In reality, West Bengal is a middle-income state, whose per capita income grew faster than the national average over the period 1990 to 2004-05. Subsequently, a slight deceleration in growth has meant that the per capita income in West Bengal is just marginally lower than the national average. However, data from the latest National Sample Survey (2004-05) indicate that per capita calorie consumption in rural West Bengal (2070 cal) was higher than the all-India average (2047 cal).

The report also alleges wide disparities in per capita income between the districts of West Bengal. The data for district wise per capita income provided in the report is sourced from Indicus Analytics; i.e. these figures have been generated by the authors themselves and are not from any authentic source. That is not to deny the existence of inter-district disparities in per capita income in West Bengal. But the authors have not provided any figures containing district-wise comparison of per capita income for States like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, which have otherwise been selectively compared with West Bengal on indicators like per capita GSDP. How do we know whether the disparity in per capita income between Kolkata and Purulia district is more than the disparity in per capita income between Mumbai and Gadchiroli or between Chennai and Sivaganga? The authors have used inter-State comparison very selectively, to buttress meaningless polemics like: “Can the Left Front leader who leaves in Kolkata and frames policies imagine what it is like to live in rural Uttar Dinajpur, even if the cost of living is lower in the latter?”

Employment Growth: The report uses Economic Census Data to portray a dismal picture of employment growth in West Bengal compared to the all-India average. However, it is generally accepted that the Economic Census data is not a reliable indicator of employment. The general practice is to estimate employment growth from NSS data. It is true that employment growth has decelerated in West Bengal as indeed it has in the whole of India in the period of neoliberal reforms. The following chart shows that the growth rate of rural employment in West Bengal between 1999-00 and 2004-05 was higher than that of the all-India average. The urban employment growth rate in West Bengal was, however, lower than the all-India average.
Source: Calculated from NSS 55th (1999-00) and 61st (2004-05) rounds of NSS

Human Development: Very significant strides made in health indicators in West Bengal, especially in the last few years, have been deliberately ignored in the report. The latest figures of the Sample Registration System show that the demographic transition has been rapid and impressive in the State, with very rapid declines in the fertility rate and even faster declines in the death rate. In fact, West Bengal now has the lowest death rate among all the major States, largely because of sharp falls in the rural death rate. The Infant Mortality Rate also fell from 91 in 1981 to 37 in 2007, which is a 60% reduction compared to 50-55% reduction for India as a whole. Only Kerala and Tamil Nadu show better performance, while fast-growing states like Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh perform significantly worse in this regard. Child immunization rates in West Bengal are also significantly better than the all-India average, and have also increased more rapidly according to both the NFHS and the more recent DLHS data. While these facts have been ignored, the report has selectively used human development indicators to portray a completely negative and one-sided picture of the State. It needs to be noted that the Human Development Report 2004 published by the West Bengal Government provides a truthful and honest account of the development experience of the State, including both the significant achievements as well as the shortcomings. One need not depend on this completely slanted report authored by two professedly biased persons to know about the areas in which the State has lagged.


Conclusion
The authors of this report had earlier authored another report released by the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies in March 2005, which placed Gujarat as the topmost State in India in terms of “economic freedom”. Besides being a bogus study, which did not have any academic merits, the report created political controversy since a section of the media used the findings to hail Narendra Modi as the best Chief Minister of India! Following this, Mr. Debroy was eased out of Directorship of the Institute by the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation headed by the Congress President. After spending some time in wilderness, these two gentlemen have reappeared on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections with yet another specious “study”, this time attacking the Left Front Government of West Bengal.

In the press conference held in New Delhi on 26th February 2009 to release the report, after persistent queries from the journalists the authors admitted that Mr. Dinesh Trivedi, Rajya Sabha MP from the Trinamul Congress had commissioned and funded the “study”. Despite the obvious political motivation behind the making of the report on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections, sections of the media are trying to use its content to indulge in slander against the West Bengal Government. While calumny against the Left in West Bengal has since long become a favourite pastime for many in the mainstream media, what is disturbing is their attempt to masquerade this phoney report as an academic exercise. The authors have indulged in colossal hypocrisy when they have rued the lack of industrialisation and deteriorating law and order in West Bengal, precisely at a time when their backers in the Trinamul Congress are working overtime to stall every attempt by the State Government to set up industries or develop infrastructure, through mindless violence and targeted assassinations of Left activists, increasing the crime rate in the State. Had the authors been genuinely interested in transforming West Bengal for the better, they would have provided some sound and sensible advice to their Trinamuli funders, rather than wasting their time on such trivia.

Prepared by CPI(M) research unit

BENGAL LF GIVES A CALL TO THE MASSES FOR A BIG ELECTORAL TRIUMPH

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.

WEST BENGAL ELECTION SCHEDULE

MAMATA RALLIES BEHIND HER UTTERANCES AT NANDIGRAM

Nandigram,14th March: Mamata Banerjee accompanied by truck-and-jeep loads of strong arm ‘supporters’ descended on Nandigram on 14 March. The small field at Hazarakata where she chose to address her faithful was not even one-third full as very few of the local folks would venture out at the fearsome sight of the kind of people accompanying her. The Maoists looked crestfallen. Mamata said interesting things. A few gems of samplers amongst many follow.

- ‘There would no PCPIR allowed at Nayachar even if “Rakesh Roshan” [father of actor Hritik Roshan] again visits the moon:’ Mamata also, in this connection, related at some detail the discussion that “Rakesh Roshan” allegedly had with the late Indira Gandhi from the moon. [What she tried to refer to of course, and in her own unique way, was the name of Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma of the IAF who had accompanied a US space mission when Indira Gandhi was the PM].
- ‘Another reason why the PCPIR would never be allowed to come up is that chemicals damage the eye, and I have proof of this.’
- “Even as I speak, the CPM is firing at us, across from Khejuri, only the sound is not heard”
- ‘CPM shall be upturned’ [?] if ‘Muslims stop running after them’
- Here is my manifesto [showing a thick bound book], but I shall not show it to you [smiles] as I have not read it myself
- The NREGA programme of late has been made dysfunctional in Midnapore east [where most GPs are run by her outfit].

The list is long and confusing and her sayings go on and on and on until we see the smattering of the local people who had made a late appearance quietly do a discreet disappearing act. The corporate media stay on as we make good our exit.

CPI (M) LEADER ESCAPES MINE BLAST AT LALGARH

Lalgarh: Isolated they might be from the masses, the Maoists have kept up the tradition of viciously executed planned individual assassination of CPI (M) leaders and workers, supporters and sympathisers, a practice that was indulged in with impunity by their predecessors the Naxalites of the turbulent and anarchic Bengal of the 1970s.

As Chandi Karan, local committee secretary of the Belatikari unit of the CPI (M) at Lalgarh later was to say later, voice firm, back straight, “Twenty seconds late and I would have been pulverised by the land mine that blasted away a large part of the road over which I had driven my motorbike”.

Nonetheless, what the brave comrade did not disclose was the sight that we saw with the motorcycle lying flung to a distance of more than a hundred yards, on the red clay sandy soil, from the large, deep, ragged hole in the ground, and the lacerations, deep and bleeding on Chandi’s body, his shirt torn to ribbons.

The CP (Maoists) later claimed that they had blasted the land mine on the day, 13 March, to kill as they put it, an ‘enemy of the people.’ The attackers, said the villagers, were five in number and that they made well their escape following the dud explosion by running away towards Kantapahari, another Maoist haven in Midnapore west, offered to the assassins from across the border, by the local Trinamul Congress chieftains.

The police later made enquiries, and found that the local comrades have already and quickly enough, discovered and tore up from a shallow cut on the ground, a long length of coaxial cable with which the land mine had been triggered off. The blast pattern was the same as had been tried unsuccessfully on Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee just over a month back away at Purulia, perhaps by the same faction of Maoist killers.

Elsewhere at Nandigram the next day, a sad sight was unearthed when the severely disfigured body of a CPI (M) worker, face made a mass of flesh wounds through repeated acidic burns, hands and feet smashed, spine twisted out of shape, Subol Kajli (32) who was very apparently tortured for an excruciatingly long time, long before being finally killed with a shot through the side of the head, was found stripped to the flesh, on the char land of the Haldi River. Comrade Subol had been forcibly taken away by Trinamuli hoods and their Maoist minders back on 7 march.

Comrade Subol had been out of his native village, out of his familiar soft, green surrounds of the Southkhali hamlet where he had been born and brought up, for a pretty long, harshly long time, away from his small family, well-knit, loving. Subol had crept back inside what is now a marauder-reigned Nandigram 1 on 7 March itself and had gone to his humble hutment. He was taken away at the dead of the night as his wife screamed in vain for help.

Subol joins the long list of CPI (M) workers who had been kidnapped by the Maoists-Trinamulis after they exerted their hold on the GPs at Midnapore east- so many familiar faces: Chanchal Midda, Mohitosh Karan et al.

Both incidents saw people come out in their thousands early enough in a show of solidarity to the Party and the class struggle the Party and the masses faced in the western and southern parts of Bengal. Biman Basu has condemned the incidents and has again asked the CPI(M) workers to move around with revolutionary discretion.

TRINAMUL GOONS KILLS CPI (M) LEADER AT JAIPUR, BANKURA

Bankura: Comrade Sayid Ali Bhuinya, member of the Jaipur zonal committee of the CPI (M) was on his way back to his humble residence on 12 March, mounted on his trusty motorbike, from electioneering across far flung areas, as the early spring evening crept darkly in, he met with a sudden, but not unexpected, and armed assault at the hands of hired goons of the local unit of the Trinamul Congress who had laid in wait, in cowardly ambush.

A turn towards the area inhabited traditionally by goldsmiths proved fatal for the dear comrade—several shots from high-powered guns rang out from the waiting assassins, two of the large-calibre bullets sliced into comrade Sayid’s right ear and passed clean through, causing an instant if an exploding, harshly painful demise-- and another martyr to the cause for which the Party stands for was written into history of glory.

HEROIC ROLE
Comrade Sayid who was a Party member from 1979 had played a heroic role during the 1998-2000 when, as it had been reported in the Party press, a series of attempts, armed and dangerous, had been made by the newborn offshoot of Pradesh Congress called the Trinamul Congress to drive CPI (M) worker-sympathisers-supporters away and off from the whole belt of Jaipur-Kotulpur-Goghat-Ghatal-Jhargram stretching across buttressing parts of Bankura-Midnapore west-Hooghly.

Comrade Sayid along with other CPI (M) leadership was in the van of the task of organisation of the popular résistance. We saw villages being looted by the marauding Trinamuli goons, women molested, and men killed, CPI (M) workers hacked to death, – and the Ananda Bazar group chose to dub the fearsome medieval barbaric acts as a kind of liberation war and termed the killer raiders ‘warriors’ (yodhhas), going to the extent of posing men and women for photo-shoots with automatic rifles in hand and faces swabbed in towelling materials and calling them ‘the liberators.’

POPULAR RESISTANCE
Those were the days of attack and popular resistance. Comrade Sayid was active amidst the masses of Bankura around the Jaipur-Kotulpur area we remember. He had been a target of the reactionaries and the sectarians since those days. Biman Basu, state secretary of the Bengal CPI (M) and the Bankura leadership of the CPI (M) have strongly castigated the heinous act of the Trinamuli goons as the elections approach and the bubble of fond optimism, boosted by the bourgeois press, starts to undergo a series of bursting as far as electoral prospect is concerned. Thousands rallied the next day to protest the dear comrade’s murder and called upon the police for an early apprehension of the merciless killers.

BENGAL STRIKES DOWN POLITICS OF COUNTER-DEVELOPMENT

By B Prasant

A facetious if factual slogan has started to appear under the supervision of the Left student-youth all over Bengal. The slogan is popular, it attracts attention of passer-by’s, and it creates ripples among the ranks of the opposition as well, against whom it is directed.

What does the slogan say? It merely paraphrases and gives a slight warp to Mamata Banerjee’s policy outlook on Singur. “We, too, want industrialisation-- we, too, want the small car to be produced – not of course in Bengal but in Modi’s Gujarat.”

The politics of destruction, of delusion, of lies, of sabotage—face utter rejection amongst the youth, a wide cross-section of whom we spoke to and interacted with all over south Bengal for the past week. The ranks included students, unemployed and employed youth of various tiers and conditions, young women of various communities and the youth belonging to a bewildering variety of caste groups, and Communists, left liberals, even those who vaguely try to stay away from what they (mis)understand to be ‘politics.’

They were united in one point. The point is the bane of counter-progress advocated by and foisted on the people by Mamata’s men and women. Even more, they detest the strong and malodorous smell that the Trinamuli campaign gives out and which tells, in so many words—you can have industrial development, you can enjoy tranquillity, you can revel in amity, provided you vote us in and the Communists out. Otherwise, we will ensure that mayhem descends on you lot, and we shall let loose the dogs of war on you.

This mind game the youth reject completely. They are also furious at the naïveté political outlook of the Mamata brigade that boasts of the fact that unless the Communists come around to kow-towing to them as the Pradesh Congress has started to do they are going to ‘bash them into submission.’

Older readers will recall the famous slogan of the Hitlerjugend or the youth vandals of the Nazi party in the Germany of the terrible thirties of the last century that we understand CPGB leader Harry Polit was fond of quoting: Seien Sie mein Bruder, oder ich werde Ihren Kopf in verprügeln (‘Be my little brother or I will bash your head in.’)

Whether it is a small gathering during the dusk of a rural evening at Joymollah at Singur or at Gopinathpur in Haripal –both in Hooghly—or a large brightly lit rally at a crowded corner of the Alimuddin Street where Mohd Selim is to open an office of the CPI (M) local committee, the youth predominate the crowd that raise the slogan of triumph, give out the sweet whiff of popular electoral victory, and speak confidently of people’s success, come the elections. The feeling is already in the air before the campaign-counter-campaign has even started: ‘we shall overcome.’

About Cong. & Trinamool alliance

Left must strengthen alliance at grassroots: Buddhadeb

Kolkata, March 13: With Trinamool Congress and Congress allying for the Lok Sabhaelections in West Bengal, state Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Friday called for strengthening Left Front unity at grassroots.

"We have seen such alliances in the past. To counter it, there is need to strengthen Left Front unity at grassroots. It is not enough to be united at the upper levels," the Chief Minister told a Left Front legislature party meeting. Bhattacharjee asked the legislators to increase their outreach and sensitise the people about the development work done by the Left Front government, especially for the minorities besides, the progress under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

Replying a question by Brahmamoy Nanda of the Socialist Party, he admitted that rural electrification was yet to cover all villages in the state. Efforts, were being made to ensure that it was done at the earliest.

Bhattacharjee said the power shortage would be over once two units at Sagardighi generating station became operational. Earlier, the assembly was adjourned for the day after 15 obituary references. A minute's silence was also observed.

BJP fields candidate against former ally Mamata Banerjee

Kolkata, Mar 13: The BJP today fielded a candidate against Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee, an erstwhile ally in the past Lok Sabha election in West Bengal. State BJP Mahila Morcha president Jyotsna Banerjee has been pitted against the TC chief in the prestigious Kolkata South constituency.

Former union minister Tapan Sikdar, who had rejoined the party last week in the presence of BJP & Prime Ministerial candidate L K Advani, was renominated from Dum Dum constituency, which he had won twice in 1998 and 1999, a party release said.

Sikdar had lost the 2004 Lok Sabha election from the seat. BJP had earlier announced that its state president and former union minister Satyabrata Mukherjee would contest from Krishnangar in Nadia district.

SUCI with Trinamool, but will oppose Congress

Kolkata, March 13 : The Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) has joined hands with the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal but that will not deter it from fielding candidates against the latter’s new ally, the Congress, in the Lok Sabha elections.

“We’ve decided to support the Trinamool but will field candidates against the Congress in nine Lok Sabha seats,” SUCI state secretary Probhas Ghosh told reporters here Friday. He said that SUCI would pit Tarun Mondal against Nemai Barman of the state’s ruling Left Front in the Jaynagar seat as part of the Trinamool-SUCI alliance.

Earlier, SUCI had threatened Trinamool that it would withdraw from the alliance if the latter tied up with the Congress or the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the coming Lok Sabha elections. “Despite (the Trinamool’s tie-up with) the Congress, we’ve decided to go on with the alliance, keeping in mind the interests of common people in the state,” Ghosh added.

Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee has appealed to the SUCI leadership not to field candidates against the Congress in West Bengal. The SUCI is a Leftist party but is opposed to the ruling LF.

West Bengal government gears up for auto components park

Kolkata: After the Singur jolt, the West Bengal government is slowly making arrangements to house the state’s first auto components park in Guptamoni in West Midnapore district. A special purpose vehicle (SPV), floated by the developers of the project, has now started buying land directly from land owners in Guptamoni, some 127 km from here, a top official of West Bengal Industrial Infrastructure Development Corp (WBIIDC) told mediapersons Friday.

“The project started around a year back. The SPV is now purchasing land directly for the project from the land owners,” the official said.It is a joint venture project by WBIIDC and Bengal SREI Infrastructure Development. WBIIDC is an organisation of the West Bengal government for development of trade, commerce and industries in the state.

Bengal SREI is a joint venture between West Bengal Industrial Development Corp (WBIDC) and SREI Infrastructure Finance Ltd. WBIIDC and Bengal SREI would develop the infrastructure and then invite auto component manufacturers to set up manufacturing units over there. Asked when the project would be completed, the official said: “It is too premature to talk about it now. We are still purchasing land.” The park would be spread over 500 acres.

The state government suffered a huge setback when global auto major Tata Motors pulled its Nano car project out of the state due to violent protests by farmers, who alleged that their land had been taken by the state government forcibly. The protests were led by the state’s principal opposition party, the Trinamool Congress. At Rs.100,000 ($2,000) Nano has been advertised as the world’s cheapest car.

Tata Motors acquired 997.11 acres at Singur in Hooghly district to construct the Nano car factory in 2006, out of which 400 acres were earmarked for building auto ancillary units. “No auto component company has approached us yet. The project is still at a nascent stage and the economic condition worldwide is also not very conducive,” the official said.

Congress surrenders to Mamata on seat deal

KOLKATA: IT HAS happened the way it was scripted to happen. Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee succeeded in arm twisting the Congress on seat sharing to seal the electoral deal at the level of the Congress High Command with the party’s high priestess Sonia Gandhi presiding over matters and conceding to the Bengal firebrand’s demand.

The seat sharing deal had to do with the Congress accepting 14 Lok Sabha seats and getting cut out of South Bengal a Trinamool base and Mamata’s party fighting in the lion’s share of seats at 27. One seat has gone to left ally SUCI.

It was obvious from the very beginning when the two parties were sparring over an electoral deal to stop division of anti-Left votes that the Congress would have to play second fiddle to the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal and would have to accept the role of a junior ally. The fact remains that ever since Mamata left the Congress in 1997 and formed her own party, the Trinamool Congress has gone from strength to strength vis a vis the Congress and reduced the latter to sign board. It is only in recent years that the Congress has seen some revival in North Bengal districts. By accepting that the Congress will fight in 14 seats as against the Triamool’s 27, Sonia and the high command has tacitly admitted that the Left in Bengal can be taken on only with Mamata spearheading the fight.

The seat sharing arrangement was formally announced by Congress Working Committee member in-charge of West Bengal, K Keshav Rao.

That the seat sharing arrangement has not gone down well with a large section of the Congress was apparent. But no leader in Bengal has dared to voice dissent so far. The Congress had wanted a few seats in South Bengal which they did not get apart from the lower number of seats they are being allowed to contest. At one stage it asked for one seat in South Bengal but was denied it by Mamata. Besides the six seats that the Congress holds it will contest from Arambag, Jhargram, Bankura, Purulia, Burdwan-Durgapur, Bolpur and Jalpaiguri.

A section of Congress leaders were of the opinion that the party high command had been taken for a ride by Mamata when she was not in a position to do so. The Congress they felt was in a much better position in striking a better deal in terms of seats simply because Mamata cannot go back to the NDA fold for fear of losing minority votes which she cashed in on during the Panchayat polls. She had the choice of tying up with the Congress or going it alone. This is where the Congress should have pressed home its advantage. Instead it was Mamata being the only MP from Bengal from her party, who managed to turn the tables on Sonia. The leaders did admit that the slow pace of political equations working out in the rest of the country may have prompted Sonia to seal the deal with Mamata despite the advantages the Trinamool chief managed to reap. Some, state Congress leaders, among them Deepa Dasmunhsi wife of Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi felt that the Congress had surrendered to Mamata.
An elated Mamata addressing a press conference went on record stating that the seat-sharing arrangement was a fulfillment of the people’s aspirations. People, she is convinced, wanted the alliance where a united opposition could take on the CPI(M) led Left and oust it from Bengal.

Mamata announces list of candidates for LS elections

KOLKATA: AFTER THE central committee of Congress in New Delhi finally gave its nod to an alliance with the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal on Thursday (March 12), the TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee announced that TMC would fight for 27 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal. While Congress would place candidates for the remaining 14 seats and the Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) for one seat only.

Banerjee also announced the names of the 27 TMC candidates. Terming the alliance between Congress and TMC in West Bengal as “a symbol of friendship”, K Kesava Rao, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) official announced in New Delhi that the alliance would sustain up to 2011 Legislative Assembly election in West Bengal to fight against the Left Front, which has been ruling Bengal for the last 32 years.

The names of the TMC candidates are as follows:

Constituency name Name of the candidates

Contai............... Sisir Adhikari

Bishnupur......... Seuli Saha

Howrah............... Ambika Banerjee

Basirhat.............. Hazi Nurul Islam

Kolkata North...... Sudip Bandopadhyayay

Kolkata South....... Mamata Banerjee

Jadavpur............... Kabir Suman

Diamond Harbour............... Somen Mitra (PIC)

Asansol............................. Moloy Ghatak

Birbhum............................. Satabdi Roy

Ranaghat............................... Sucharu Halder

Krishnanagar........................ Tapas Pal

Hoogly...................................... Ratna Nag

Ghatal....................................... Nure Alam Chowdhury

Tamluk...................................... Suvendu Adhikari

Uluberia..................................... Sultan Ahmed

Balurghat.................................. Biplab Mitra

Midnapore............................... Deepak Ghosh

DumDum.................................. Sougata Roy

Barrackpore............................... Dinesh Trivedi

Cooch behar................................ Argha Roy Pradhan

Burdwan East............................ Ashok Biswas

Serampore................................. Kalyan Bandopadhyayay

Mathurapur............................ C M Jatuya

Alipurduar........................... Pawan Lakra

Bongaon.................................... Gobinda Chandra Naskar

Barasat................................... Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar

Though Somen Mitra is the founder member of the Pragatisil Indira Congress (PIC) and would fight for the Diamond Harbour seat, he wants the symbol of TMC in the ballot.