People's Democracy

B Prasant

OVER the past several days, the central leadership of the CPI(M) has campaigned across West Bengal calling upon the people who thronged their meetings to ensure a resounding victory of the Left Front, defeating the opportunist and anti-people contenders like the BJP, the Trinamul Congress and the Pradesh Congress. Among those who addressed election meetings were CPI (M) general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet and Polit Bureau member Prakash Karat.

Addressing three meetings at Rishra, Bally and South Kolkata, Harkishan Singh Surjeet lambasted the policies of both the Congress and the BJP. He said that during the 45 years of Congress misrule, a handful of the rich had prospered while the country had gone deeper into economic quagmire.

"The Congress which claims that it is a secular political party," said Surjeet, "has time and again made compromises with the forces of communalism." It also betrayed the trust that the minority communities and the people belonging to backward classes had reposed in the Congress.

The Congress’s anti-people policies have not only served to isolate the party from the masses, there has also been steep decline in its vote share across the country. Earlier, Surjeet pointed out, the Congress obdurately continued to lay claim about forming a government at the centre on its own. Later on, bitter experience made the Congress leadership decide at the AICC’s recent Bangalore session to think in terms of cobbling together a coalition under its leadership.

Surjeet regretted the fact that the Left, democratic and secular forces "have not been able to fill the political space left behind by the Congress because of its isolation from the people." He added that the Congress "is responsible for making way for the rise of the communal BJP since the former’s long series of misdeeds facilitated the latter to make its presence felt at the national level."

In a wide-ranging critique of the policies of the BJP and its cohorts, the veteran communist leader pointed out how the BJP "has gone ahead with impunity to strike at the two most important components of the fabric of national unity in India." By attacking the tenets of secularism and federalism that ensure amity between people of different religions and languages, the BJP "has effectively started an inexorable process that would lead to the partitioning of the country along lines of religion, language and region."

With the attacks organised on minority groups by the members of the Sangh Parivar, and the attempts to slice up linguistic states along chauvinistic lines, the BJP appeared hell bent on destroying the fabric of national unity, Surjeet declared.

Turning to the pre-election scene in Bengal, Surjeet was critical of the politics of opportunism being practiced with zest by the likes of the Trinamul Congress who are yet to clear up the fog of uncertainty about their continuing alignment with the National Democratic Alliance. "We want to know where the Trinamul Congress stands, in its hurry to make a desperate bid for office in Bengal."

In conclusion, Surjeet urged the people of Bengal to ensure a massive victory of the Left Front in the coming elections --- not only to maintain the pace of development here but also to strengthen the Lok Morcha at the national level.

Addressing a series of meetings in Bankura and North 24 Parganas districts, CPI(M) leader Prakash Karat reminded the assemblage that, despite the recent alleged political rupture between the NDA and the Trinamul Congress, the fact remained that over the past three years the latter had been a wholehearted supporter of the anti-people policies of the NDA.

Ms Mamata Banerjee remained quiet and obliging, said Karat, when the BJP-led union government chose to "open out" the portals of the core sectors of economy to the scions of foreign corporate capital.

Karat said the Trinamul Congress provided full support to the union budget too, with its variety of anti-people measures. He noted how the issues that concerned the welfare of the people at large --- issues like retrenchment, reduction of the savings rate for small investors, and withdrawal of agricultural subsidies --- were fully backed by the Trinamul Congress, unlike some other partners of the NDA.

Prakash Karat also recalled the blatant manner in which Ms Mamata Banerjee backed L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharati when the opposition groups in both houses of parliament called for the resignation of the trio on being named accused in the case of Babari Mosque demolition. Indeed, there was no difference of opinion between the Trinamul and the BJP on issues concerning the communal line being advocated by the former.

The Trinamul Congress, said Karat, chose to disassociate itself from the NDA only when there was a need to go in for face saving in the aftermath of the exposure of the defence-related scam by an internet website. There is a lot of hemming and hawing by Ms Mamata and her cohorts on the question of formally declaring that they have come out of the NDA. But the options are being kept open in every sense of the term, declared the CPI(M) leader.

Prakash Karat concluded by urging the people of Bengal to vote for amity and development, and against anarchy, and thus ensure an augmentation of the political consolidation of the Lok Morcha nationwide. (INN)