People's Democracy

CPI(M) Initiates Drive To Collect Fund For Quake Victims

Anil Biswas participating in the fund-collection drive in Kolkata

IMMEDIATELY after the call issued by the CPI(M) Polit Bureau, the Bengal unit of the CPI(M) has been engaged in collecting funds for relief and rehabilitation of the earthquake victims in Jammu & Kashmir.

The CPI(M) workers have come out with portable drop boxes (tin containers with a slot on the lid) and are going around with large-sized Red flags held at four corners on which contributions are deposited by the people.

The autumn festival has been focussed on for the purposes of collection of fund for the quake victims.  Nearly every major pandal or the temporary bamboo-and-wood-and-tarpaulin structures where the images are placed, one finds the CPI(M) workers of the local unit accompanied by mass organisation activists active in the drive to collect funds.  The stalls put up for display and sale of classical Marxist literature and CPI(M) publications form the hub of activities here.

The drop boxes are meant for coins but in most instances, the sympathetic people are known to put in currency notes of various denominations almost everywhere.  The Khardah local committee of the CPI(M) could collect no less than Rs 22,000 in the space of a couple of evenings.  The Birati local committee has pitched in already with Rs 10,000.  Both local committees are of the north 24 Parganas district unit.

The autumn festival which passed off peacefully amidst gaiety and joy, also saw the Bengal CPI(M) very active in collecting signatures on a form letter to be sent to the Council of Europe for its presently aborted attempt to denigrate Communism and Marxism. 

The depth of support for Communism in Bengal was easily marked across the state as people not generally associated with the Left would nonetheless come forward and put their signatures on the protest letter since, as one of them declared, ‘an attack on the Communist ideology must never go unanswered, and the CPI(M) has taken the correct initiative in this regard.’

Elsewhere Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has declared that the Bengal Left Front government would contribute Rs 1 crore for the relief and rehabilitation of the victims of earthquake in J&K.  Buddhadeb has also expressed his deep sorrow for the quake victims and sympathy for the grieving families.  (B P)