WEST BENGAL

CPI(M) To Launch Campaign-Movement

Against The BJP-Led Union Govt

B Prasant

IN ITS one-day meting held at the Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan in Kolkata on January 9, the Bengal unit of the CPI(M) resolved to build up struggles against the anti-people, communal, and divisive policies of the BJP-led NDA government in Delhi.  It has also called for strengthening of the election organisation by taking into confidence the people of the state, in view of the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.  The state committee has decided to carry out the rectification campaign as a continuous process and to augment the Party organisation ever more.  Biman Basu, a Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M), presided over the session.

In the state committee meeting, veteran CPI(M) leader, Jyoti Basu said that the compromising position of the Congress vis-à-vis communal politics and its sticking to a norm of anti-people economic policy have allowed the BJP to emerge winners in three states where polls were recently held.  Basu said that in Bengal, the Left Front “has carried forward a pro-people alternative for all of 26 years and that this has increased the responsibility of the Party ever more to expose and oppose the menace that is the BJP before the nation.”

There would be, Basu clarified to say, no front as such with the Congress and that discussions would be going on with the various secular-democratic forces to ensure a massive defeat of the BJP in the coming Lok Sabha polls. The central committee of the Party would decide on the strategy and tactics.

Reporting on the CPI(M) Polit Bureau meeting, Anil Biswas said that the fortnight between February 1 and 15 would see the campaign-movement against the policies of the BJP-led union government stepped up.  At the same time, steps would continue to strengthen the Party organisation.  That task is a continuing one, said Biswas. Party education would be organised between February 2 and 22 all over the state at various levels on such issues as the principle ideological line, the present situation, the Party constitution, the Party programme, and the political line.  Political programmes would be taken up to strengthen the Party and the Left Front towards meeting the challenge of the next Lok Sabha polls.

The ongoing slander campaign being organised against the Party and the Left Front must be met effectively, said Biswas.  Such attacks would increase as the polls approached.  A leaflet has been published and distributed widely against the baseless allegations brought in by the opposition on such issues as taxation by the Panchayats, health matters, power generation and distribution, etc. 

The bandh called by the Trinamul Congress and wholeheartedly supported by the BJP on February 3 on issues that are in existence on in the figment of their crooked imagination, must be opposed comprehensively.  Wide campaign-work must be continued to go to the people and expose the fallacy behind the logic of the bandh call, exhorted Biswas.

The state committee also decided to add a special emphasis on the further increase in the circulation of Party publications.  The documents adopted at the September meeting of the state unit has already been discussed thoroughly at the district level of the Party and below.  The Party must be made free of errors and deviations by implementing the recommendations and tasks outlined in that document and the process would have to be continued. In general, satisfactory progress could be achieved in this direction, believes the state committee.

The state committee has resolved that the issue of decrease in the number of CPI(M) ministers in the state Left Front government would be taken up by the state secretariat of the Party.  Anti-imperialist campaigns would be organised in the state against the overt and covert attempts of the United States to put pressure on Cuba, as also on the issue of imperialist aggression in general.

Anil Biswas said that the issue on the basis of which the electoral battle would be waged would be finalised following the upcoming Polit Bureau and central committee meeting of the CPI(M) after which the state committee would meet by the second week of February.

The call that the central committee of the CPI(M) has issued on organising countrywide campaign-movement against the anti-people policies of the BJP-led union government would be implemented in the state in full and meetings would be addressed by the state CPI(M) leadership including ministers in the LF government and members of parliament.  Additional campaign materials would be printed and circulated widely.  Leaflets are already in circulation.