People's Democracy

TRIPURA

Tripura Expresses Fraternity With The People Of West Bengal

Buddhadeb addressing a rally in Agartala commemorating 30 years of Left Front govt of West Bengal.

Haripada Das

WE cannot take a reverse track and it is our robust duty to carry forward our drive for industrialisation to provide job to the lakhs of unemployed youths in rural Bengal. We cannot frustrate their aspiration. Lest, the coming generation shall not forgive us. This was the strong assertion of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, chief minister of West Bengal while addressing a mammoth rally at Stable Ground, Agartala on July 8, 2007. Buddhadeb Bhattacharee was addressing a massive rally at the call of the Tripura Left Front committee, at Agartala as a mark of the observance of 30th anniversary of West Bengal Left Front government. Khagen Das, convenor of the Tripura Left Front Committee presided over the rally which was addressed among others by Manik Sarkar, chief minister, Tripura, Naren Dey, minister, West Bengal, Prasanta Kapali, secretary, CPI state council and Sudarshan Bhattacharjee, secretary, RSP state committee.

Defying the drizzling from the morning, people from different sub-divisions of West Tripura district and Udaipur of south Tripura paraded to the rally ground with slogans expressing solidarity and fraternity to the people of West Bengal and its Left Front government. Notable among them was the participation of tribals, youths and women in large numbers. Both, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and minisiter Naren Dey were given a warm and massive reception on their arrival at Agartala airport in the morning. A procession of about 500 scooterists escorted their convoy from airport to Agartala.

During his maiden speech, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee informed that some people inside the country and abroad wonder how does a Front of communist parties win elections consecutively for seven times in a single state of a bourgeoisie-landlord country. It’s not magic, he replied. The truth lies on the historic pro-people ceaseless struggle of the Left Front, which is not a mere electoral hotchpotch. It is a product of innumerable sacrifices, at the cost of immeasurable blood, sweat and tear. Left Front always paid highest priority in protecting the rights of the people to live. Citing the change of the land holding pattern, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said, in once feudal state like West Bengal, 84 percent arable lands are held by poor peasants at present. Coupled with this, Left Front government ensured empowerment of the rural poor through conducting regular elections to the panchayat and local self bodies. Left Front government is the instrument of generating sense of self-dignity among the poor masses who were so long subjected to unending exploitation by the landlords. This land reform bore fruit. While, in so called advanced states, the frustrated peasants are committing suicide, thanks to the menacing affect of globalisation, in quite contrast, the kisans of our state ensured 4 percent growth in agri sector, Buddhadeb informed. He referred to the UPA government’s boast of 9 percent growth. But, he said, when asked about job generation, they admit, instead of creating new jobs, 4 percent of existing jobs have been lost during the year. Describing hollowness of such growth, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee emphasised on the job-oriented industrialisation maintaining the present achievement in agriculture.

Describing the quite negative role of the state opposition parties, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said, “we could not make any breakthrough against the yoke of permit-system from the centre in the sphere of industrialisation for long period. That has been removed now. Noticing favourable atmosphere conducive for industrialisation, many investors are showing interest to invest in our state. Many closed units reopened by this time. But to the dismay of all sections of the people, the opposition not only raises hurdles in every developmental projects, it has resorted to the heinous bloody violence, sabotage, destruction and rumor-mongering. Unlike the opposition in other states who are cooperative with the government in respect of state’s development, here the opposition is negating every move of the government.”

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee greeted the people of Tripura for the moral support they lent to the struggling people of West Bengal and assured to strengthen the fraternal ties between the people of these two states, which have been striving for the same objective. He strongly expected that the people of Tripura will repose faith in Left Front again in the next Assembly elections.

Manik Sarkar in his address said, the Left Front government in West Bengal surviving for long 30 years is not a magic at all. Left Front cemented political consciousness in the minds of the people through everyday struggle. Narrating the Nandigram episode as a conspiracy hatched up at high places, Manik Sarkar said, the mastermind behind this anti-industrialisation movement has only objective i.e. to castigate Left Front government as anti-peasant and not to ‘save land’. But, politically conscious people of West Bengal will foil this machination, he hoped. Since its inception, Indian communists faced many such anti-communist conspiracies right from Meerat Conspiracy case. In the present day also, such machinations are afoot to defame the Left Front governments in three states, as they are projecting the true alternative to the countrymen, Manik Sarkar said.

At the outset, the president of the rally read out a condolence resolution in memory of the recent flood victims in West Bengal and other states of the country and a minute of silence was observed in their memory.