People's Democracy

Trinamul’s Deceptive Bandh Call Condemned

THE Trinamul Congress, plagued by a continuously flagging popularity, and riven by bitter internecine feud, has chosen to inconvenience the people of Bengal on a virtual non-issue. It has called for a statewide bandh on February 3 to ostensibly protest against the alleged move by the Left Front government ‘to tax domesticated animals.’

The CPI(M) state secretary, Anil Biswas, Left Front chairman, Biman Basu, and Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee have strongly condemned the call for the statewide bandh. The state unit of the BJP has supported the bandh call.

Responding to the charges hurled at the Left Front and the Left Front government, Anil Biswas said that the move afoot was a calculated one to deceive the people by raising issues that were non-starters.  The circular that the Trinamul Congress leader, Mamata Banerjee has liberally referred to is not a government order at all.

What the circular (3644-PN/o/1/3-R-3/2001 of October 14 2003) does is to identify some 500 areas as bases from where taxation could be mobilised. The circular is in practice treated as a pro forma, to be applied as a guideline for imposition of taxes by the Gram Panchayats in their respective areas. The final decision would be taken in consultation with the people of the locality. 

Indeed, in his reaction to Mamata Banerjee’s charge that the decision to allow Gram Panchayats to organise taxation, Anil Biswas pointed out that the Panchayat Act of 1973 had, in fact, called upon measures to allow the Gram Panchayats to mobilise its own resources, and taxation was identified as one of the means to do so. (INN)