People's Democracy

Pradesh Congress Withdraws Bandh Call

IN a development that was not exactly unexpected, the Pradesh Congress has withdrawn the bandh call it had earlier given for June 14. The bandh was to be held to protest against various instances of "misrule" of the Bengal Left Front government. The decision for withdrawal was announced on June 2 in late evening, at the Pradesh Congress office.

Reacting to the latest Pradesh Congress move, Bengal CPI(M) secretary Anil Biswas said the people of the state would be rid "at least of a good deal of completely unnecessary harassment as the bandh was called on the basis of issues that were complete non-starters."

With this Pradesh Congress decision, a great deal of confusion has come to reign in the inner coterie of the Trinamul Congress with one section getting to develop cold feet about the bandh called for June 7. The fact of withdrawal of the June 14 bandh by the Pradesh Congress, too, has caused some amount of embarrassment to the Trinamul Congress.

Earlier, in its meeting held at Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan on May 31, the Bengal Left Front had called upon both Trinamul Congress and Pradesh Congress to withdraw their June 7 and June 14 bandhs calls respectively. Describing these calls as antithetical to the people’s interest, the Left Front had said these bandhs would greatly inconvenience a large number of university students the dates of whose examinations had already been announced.

Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, too, had asked both the two parties to withdraw their bandhs and discuss the concerned issues with the state government.

On the other hand, the CPI(M) had refuted each and every issue on which the Pradesh Congress had called the bandh. One of these was the question of remunerative prices for crops. About it, Anil Biswas had noted that the "falling prices of crops, a nationwide phenomenon, has originally been caused by the wrong kind of economic policy stuck by the Congress-run union governments in succession and then suitably followed in a comprehensive measures by the NDA-run governments." Saying that the Bengal Left Front government was making all efforts to adequately tackle the crisis, Biswas also drew attention of the Pradesh Congress stalwarts to the spate of suicides by farmers in several states where the Congress was in office.

Another issue was the Left Front government’s alleged failure "to come up with a list of people who live below the poverty line (BPL)." About it, Biswas had told that such a list was to be published by May 31 and then the people could always provide the government with additions or corrections.

About school teachers, the CPI(M) leader had said they would from now on get their wages and salaries a week later than they usually do every month, and described the Pradesh Congress’s comment that the teachers would stand devoid of pay as both "ridiculous and motivated." He drew the Pradesh Congress leadership’s attention to the plight of the teaching community in states like Kerala where the UDF government "has not been able to provide the teachers and educational employees with salaries and wages for the past three months." Biswas would not comment on the question raised by the Pradesh Congress on the proposed increased in power tariff by the Kolkata Electric Supply Corporation as the matter was yet sub judice.