LF APPEAL TO PEOPLE

Further Strengthen The Left Presence

 B Prasant

THE Bengal Left Front has urged upon the electorate to ensure that LF candidates emerged victorious and by big margins in all 42 seats that were contested from the state for the Lok Sabha.  The present situation, the Bengal Left Front believes, favours the emergence of secular governance at the centre and a defeat for the forces of communalism.  The win would also augment the Bengal citadel of the Left, is how the Bengal Left Front leadership has put it.

Explaining before the media the principal points of the Appeal to the People of the Left Front, LF chairman Biman Basu said that the document highlights in a summary form the circumstances in which the elections to the Lok Sabha were being held.  The reckless and unpardonable crimes of the Trinamul Congress and the misdemeanours of the Congress have been stressed in the text.  So have been the pro-people and alternate outlook of the state Left Front and the Left Front government.

The Appeal iterates that it is the Left Front that has the strength, and the determination, to fight and defeat in Bengal all forces of imperialist globalisation, neo-liberalism, privatisation, and religious fundamentalism. The Left Front is ready to make all sacrifices to ensure that a fresh wave of enthusiasm emanates out of Bengal in terms of struggles against imperialism, and for democracy, and secularism through defeating all reactionary ‘grand alliances’ including those gone in for by the BJP-Trinamul Congress and the Congress.

It is the Left who truly represent the masses in the Parliament and they are the real voice of the people.  The electorate must vote for the Left Front for it is the Left Front, which has the defined aim and the capacity to unify the Left, democratic, and secular forces at the centre and to set up a real alternate to both the BJP and the Congress.

It is the Left Front that is the true successor of the path-breakers of the 19th century Bengal renaissance like Vidyasagar, Ram Mohun Roy, and Vivekananda.  It also enjoys the glorious succession of such literary genius as those of Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam, and Sukanta Choudhury, as well of the strong anti-imperialist traditions of Khudhiram Bose, Prafulla Chaki, ‘Masterda’ Surya Sen, ‘Bagha’ Jatin, Matangini Hazra, and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

The people must take part in the electoral process en masse to defeat the traitors to the nation, the conspirators who assassinated Gandhi, and all those who are in covert and overt league with them.  The glorious tradition of the state must be upheld.

The people must deploy all their will and strength to ensure a big win for the Left Front candidates and defeat the opposition alliances to ensure that the legitimate demands of the state got fructified.  The Congress and the BJP-Trinamul alliance, the Appeal points out, are the perpetrators of the crime of keeping the state deprived of its rightful dues and of supporting the forces of terrorism and separatism.  At a time when very many state governments have succumbed to the dictates of the BJP-led union government, it has been the Left Front that has made sacrifices and have tried to stand on its own two feet.  The people should vote for the Left Front candidates for the sake of enhancement of the pride and honour of Bengal, for a restructuring of the centre-state relationship, as well as for the sake of strengthening the federalist structure.

The Appeal notes that in the past, despite a series of unprecedented efforts at slander, maligning, misformation, and conspiracy, the Left Front could win one election after the other, whether to the Panchayats, the municipalities, the Vidhan Sabha and the Lok Sabha and by substantial margins.  The past Panchayat polls saw the Left Front mete out a sound drubbing to the ‘grand alliance’ of the opposition.

The present phase has been witness to organised efforts at building up another ‘grand alliance’ against the Left Front.  The effort is supported by a lie campaign of misinformation.  The Left Front appeals to all concerned to further strengthen the unity of the Left Front, to building up a relation with the masses that is even more living and sincere, to strip the mask off of the face of the anti-Left forces, and to muster a massive support for the Left Front, come the Lok Sabha elections.

The Appeal underlines the fact that the only alternate to the Left Front is a better and stronger Left Front.  It is only the Left Front which can wage an uncompromising struggle against corruption and criminalisation in politics and to build up a clean administration of honesty, devotion, transparency, quickness, efficacy, and of empathy and sensitivity for the people’s needs and for the people’s rights.

The better Left Front must be built through better consciousness, higher strata of struggle and organisation, and through conducting struggle for better integrity and better unity.  The Left Front calls upon every citizen of Bengal to take part in the process and to ensure that all 42 Lok Sabha representatives from Bengal to the 14th Lok Sabha represent the Left Front.