People's Democracy

THE West Bengal unit of the CPI(M) is currently in the midst of a two-month long, vigorous campaign against the anti-people policies of the BJP-led union government. And a major feature of the programme will be the massive rally the CPI(M) will hold on June 21, to commemorate the 25 years of the Left Front government in the state.

The campaign and the June 21 rally are parts of the decisions the one-day meeting of CPI(M) state committee arrived at some time ago, apart from stressing the need to ensure greater participation in panchayat bodies.

The meeting urged upon all CPI(M) units in Bengal to spare no effort in making the campaign a notable success. On the two reports the state CPI(M) secretary Anil Biswas placed before the meeting, one concerned the activities and initiatives of the state secretariat since the last meeting and the other about with the details of the two months long programme.

Each party branch will organise at least one neighbourhood level meeting (baithak sabha) in this period, to mobilise popular opinion in a sharply focussed manner against the anti-people and anti-poor nature of the BJP-led government’s policies.

A statewide campaign is on against the ongoing killings in Gujarat also. Seminars, conventions and cultural functions are being organised in urban wards as well as villages to strengthen and invigorate communal amity. The ongoing programmes in this regard will continue as before.

The state committee meeting has already fixed the political-organisational responsibilities of state secretariat members. Various party teams and sub-committees, then set up, are vigorously functioning.

Apart from the central convention at the Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata on June 21 to commemorate the 25 years of the Left Front government, meetings will be held all over the state and the country on the day.

The CPI(M)’s district units in Bengal will also organise week-long party education camps, with the syllabus including the issues of imperialist aggression and the dangers of fundamentalism.

At the state committee meeting, Bengal’s panchayat minister Surya Kanta Mishra placed a detailed report on the functioning of the panchayats. It emphasised the need of honesty, transparency, democratic functioning and popular participation in the panchayati raj institutions.

Mishra spoke of the need to take up the issue of rural planning in good time, at every level, for successful plan implementation with enhanced popular participation. He also spoke of utilising the Gram Sansads as a democratic forum where people of all shades of political opinion would be encouraged to participate in the functioning of the panchayats.

The entire array of anti-Left forces in the state is likely to gang up in the next rural polls in a bid to dislodge the Left Front from as many panchayat bodies as they could. Thus there is urgent need to take all necessary political and organisational steps to ensure that the forces of reaction do not succeed in their evil gambit. Mishra also pointed out the importance of strengthening the self-help groups, especially those comprising women, to make the panchayat functioning more pro-people and more efficient.

Addressing a big rally of women in Kolkata recently, CPI(M) leader Jyoti Basu said the Gujarat carnage "has again underlined that an uncivilised regime rules up in Delhi and our task is to remove it from office."

Complimenting the AIDWA for organising the rally, the former Bengal chief minister said that by organising such protest rallies everywhere in the state since the Gujarat killing started, "the people of Bengal have once again demonstrated how they utterly reject the frenzy of majoritarian barbarism being unleashed in Gujarat." Basu charged the supine, BJP-led union government of continuing to fiddle, making efforts only to keep the Modi government alive.

At the rally, AIDWA general secretary Brinda Karat flayed the Trinamul Congress for backing the BJP government at the centre for petty gains. She pointed out how petitions for court intervention in the organisation and supervision of the relief camps in Gujarat were not admitted. She was surprised at the delay in identifying the culprits of the Godhra arson and said the BJP continued nevertheless to play upon the Godhra incident as the "real cause" behind the Gujarat riots.

Shyamali Gupta, Banani Biswas, and Rekha Goswami, among others, also addressed the rally.

In condemnation of the Gujarat killings, the AIDWA has organised rallies in all the districts of Bengal --- from Darjeeling in the north to the two Midnapores and the two 24 Parganas in the south.