People's Democracy

EDITORIAL

Left Front Wins Back Kolkata

UNDER the full media glare and on the day the Left Front completed 28 years in government in West Bengal, Left Front wrested the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) from the Trinamul Congress. The Left Front also won satellite township Bidhan Nagar (Salt Lake) by vastly increasing it tally.

Over the last two weeks the media, both print and electronic had displayed an heightened interest in a municipal election as if it was a referendum on the Left Front policies in West Bengal. The law and order situation in the metropolis was described as disturbing and apprehensions were raised that the election will not be peaceful. A section had also portrayed that the corporation under the Trinanmul was “pro-development” and thereby subtly campaigning against the Left Front. All such hopes have been belied in a resoundingly clear verdict.

The election to the KMC were treated as a dress rehearsal for the assembly elections that are due next year and as pointed out by Comrade Jyoti Basu the Left Front could win two thirds majority if it continues to implement pro-people policies in the state. The optimism is based on the electoral victories that the Left Front has achieved in the recent Panchayat elections and the 79 municipalities across the state last month. The West Bengal chief minister Basudeb Bhattacharya has said after the results that it has increased “our responsibilities to carry out developmental work in the city.”

It needs to be noted that under the Left Front rule of about the last three decades Kolkata is one of the safest cities among the metros. It contributed only 3.4 per cent of the total number of crimes committed in the metros in 2000. Kolkata is also a city where caste and communal politics has not been able to get any foothold. It is due to the Left Front’s sway over the politics of the state that has kept the city of Kolkata free of the pernicious politics of the “sons of the soil” variety so aggressively being pursued in the metropolis of Mumbai.

The result of the KMC elections are an endorsement of the Left Front politics and policies.