Attempts At Disruption Would Be Sternly Tackled: Buddhadeb

IN the post-Panchayat poll scenario, all attempts at disturbing the peace in the state are being and would be dealt with in appropriate manner by the Left Front government. This was said by Bengal chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at a ‘Meet the Press’ programme organised by the Kolkata Press Club on May 19. Bhattacharjee also said that no forces would be able to harm the unity of the Bengal Left Front.

Tackling a bunch of questions in his stride, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee spoke to the assembled media on a variety of subjects. These ranged from the recent and continuing violence unleashed by the opposition in the countryside to the issue of law-and-order, to the state LF government’s developmental perspective.

ROLE OF THE OPPOSITION

Bhattacharjee sternly refuted the claim that during the Panchayat polls, the opposition in Bengal was “made to suffer a bloodbath in the villages so that they would not find it prudent to contest the polls.” The Bengal chief minister said that it had been the opposition, i.e., the Trinamul Congress, the Pradesh Congress, and the BJP, which had spoken shamelessly about the need for a “civil war in Bengal.” They launched a violent and bloody assault on the CPI(M) workers. The police, Bhattacharjee said, had acted in time for otherwise, the toll could well have been much higher.

Bhattacharjee pointed out that of the 42 men and women who had died just before, during, and just after the Panchayat polls, by far the largest number belonged to the CPI(M). In passing, Bhattacharjee also dismissed the media and opposition notion as “completely ridiculous and motivated” that the rural polls of 2003 were “worse than even elections of 1972 when the Congress had run a bloody campaign followed by a rigged electoral affair.”

Answering another question, the chief minister enunciated clearly that only the sternest measures were being adopted against a few errant elements within the Party, leading to their being driven out of the Party. The Left Front government, Bhattacharjee pointed out, “has never discriminated in any manner against those guilty in the eye of the law on the basis of their political affiliation.”

Bhattacharjee also refuted the allegation that the opposition was ever made to suffer the indignity of being prevented from filing nomination papers for the rural polls. There was no recorded instance at any level, said the chief minister, to substantiate this wild charge being bandied by some opposition parries and in a section of the media. Rural Bengal, said Bhattacharjee, had comprehensively rejected the opposition parties in the sense that the people did not like to see a return to the anarchy of the 1970’s.

Bhattacharjee stated that the Left Front, never a divided house, was set up not merely as an electoral alliance but as a forum of struggle. “The unity of the LF shall never be weakened since the only alternative to the Left Front is a better Left Front,” was how the chief minister put it.

Shifting to other topics, Bhattacharjee squarely blamed the fiscal and financial policies of the BJP-led union government for the root cause of the financial ills plaguing Bengal and other states. He said that a restructuring of the dynamics of relationship between the centre and the state had to be worked out. Bhattacharjee pointed out in this connection the efforts made the LF government to enhance income and cut down on non-productive expenditure.

ONGOING DEVELOPMENTS

Speaking on the developmental perspective of the Bengal Left Front government, the chief minister said that the agriculture sector was being further consolidated with a flourishing of agro-based industries. The rate of industrial investment in the state has gone up. The IT sector has developed rapidly.

Improvements are being consistently worked out in the sectors of health and education. Special efforts have been put in place to improve the quality of life of the people who live below the poverty line. However, Bhattacharjee freely confessed that much more needed to be done to accelerate further the present pace of development.