People's Democracy

THE drive organised by the West Bengal Left Front constituents to collect donations from the people for the Gujarat riot victim was an eminent success. On April 9 morning, the venue for the fund collection was the CPI(M)’s West Bengal state committee office at Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan. Left Front chairman Biman Basu and CPI(M) state secretary Anil Biswas sat at a trestle table, set up in the portico of the building, to issue receipts and coupons to the people who came in their thousands and from every walk of life to make their contributions to the Gujarat aid fund.

A number of industrial units in Tapsia on the eastern fringe of Kolkata donated Rs 2.25 lakh.

State units of the DYFI and the SFI contributed Rs 50,000 and Rs 25,000 respectively. The West Bengal unit of Kisan Sabha donated Rs 50,000. The state unit of the AIDWA contributed Rs 26,000.

Contributions via purchase of coupons worth Rs 10 and Rs 20 continued to pour in throughout the morning and afternoon hours.

In the evening on the same day, another fund collection drive was organised at the state committee office of the Forward Bloc. Similar programmes would be held in the state unit offices of all the Left Front constituents in the coming weeks, Biman Basu told INN.

THE gangsters in the payroll of the Trinamul Congress have killed no less than 39 CPI(M) workers during a one-year period. Citing this as a clear evidence that a disjointed Trinamul Congress yet remains enamoured of systematic violence, CPI(M) state secretary Anil Biswas said the Trinamul Congress chief has started to indulge in a net of elaborate disinformation about "CPI(M) murdering our boys" as a ploy to draw the people’s attention away from the mayhem that "her boys" continue to indulge in with impunity.

Citing facts, Biswas told mediapersons at the Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan on April 9 that, in all, 51 CPI(M) workers were martyred in the wake of the state assembly elections. Of them, 39 were killed by Trinamul Congress goons, 7 by Pradesh Congress thugs, 3 by Naxalite gangsters, and 2 by common criminals. (INN)