Bengal State Committee On Panchayat Polls

The West Bengal state committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) met in Kolkata on May 25 and 26, 2008 to take stock of the Panchayat elections. It issued the following statement:

THE Bengal state committee was in session for one-and-a-half days on May 25 and 26, 2008 at the Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan. The CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat attended. Central committee member Benoy Konar was in the chair.

The principal agenda of discussion was a �preliminary review� of the results obtained at the seventh Panchayat general elections held in three phases earlier in the month.

Biman Basu placed a preliminary review report on behalf of the state CPI(M) secretariat. The state leadership then heard the district-level experiences. Quite a few state committee members gave their personal views and opinions on the Panchayati raj polls and the outcome that was obtained.

Both Prakash Karat and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee spoke at the meeting on the rural polls and results. By the first week of July, a comprehensive review report of the rural general elections would be prepared by the Bengal unit of the CPI(M).

In its preliminary review, the state committee would believe that the rural polls were held in the backdrop of what it called a �sharp and high-level anti-CPI(M) and anti-Left Front campaign of pro-active and aggressive nature containing lies and untruths, slanders and maligning.� The state committee, however, is at one to hold that the results that were obtained were not what had been expected.

Yet, the level of victory was politically significant and important, it noted. The state committee has thus unstintingly felicitated the mass of the people of democratically-conscious Bengal on ensuring that the Left Front came through generally triumphant in the polls, in the final analysis, even in places where the chips were down, and things weighed heavily against the CPI(M).

The CPI(M) did rather badly in some districts. This the state committee self-critically admits without hesitation or qualification. The Bengal CPI(M), win, or lose, has humbly accepted and in a self-effacing manner, the verdict of the mass of the people.

The state committee could identify, again at a preliminary level, some pointers into the task of explaining the reasons why what happened as it did, as far as Panchayat results were concerned.

First, it had not been possible, because of a plethora of reasons to be gone into subsequently, to counter effectively the campaign carried out attacking the programmes of industrialisation and development undertaken by the Left Front government.

Second, there was a palpable inability to profile before the people with hard data, towards successfully nailing the campaign of lie and slander of the Bengal opposition on the relevant issues.

Third, the Bengal opposition were, in a way, successful in creating some amounts of misunderstanding and confusion amongst the people on the land question.

Fourth, there were perceptive lacunae in some areas on the politically important issue of involving in a participatory manner wide sections of the people in the running of the Panchayati raj institutions.

Fifth, the disunity within the Left Front has had baneful effects on the poll outcome.

Sixth, some disadvantages and organisational weaknesses remained on the part of the CPI(M) in the task of expanding a wide and deep mass contact in the state.

The state committee holds that the adverse results obtained in the elections would not constitute a permanent political process, or event. The CPI(M) can and shall forge ahead in an organised way with a mass participation of the entire Bengal Party unit along with, and standing shoulder-to-shoulder to the Party�s sympathisers and supporters.

The relationship between the CPI(M) and the wider sections of the masses in Bengal must be made wider as well as deeper in a politically meaningful way. The programme of industrial development undertaken by the state Left Front government, too, shall forge ahead as per plan.

The CPI(M) will stress on moving ahead with the participation of the people, and deferring to their views and opinion. The concerned issues must be accelerated while the state LF government deepens further its contact with the people in the task of development.

ORGANISATIONAL

ISSUES

The state committee meeting also decided on certain organisational issues. CPI(M) Polit Bureau member, Mohd Amin has asked to be relieved from the state committee in view of the decision of his functioning from the Party centre in Delhi. Mohd Salim has been inducted into the state committee.

The fifteen-member state secretariat comprises Jyoti Basu, Biman Basu, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Nirupam Sen, Benoy Konar, Shyamal Chakraborty, Surjya Kanta Mishra, Madan Ghosh, Gautam Deb, Mridul De, Dipak Dasgupta, Amitava Basu, Raghunath Kushari, Subhas Chakraborty, and Mohd Salim.

Several CPI(M) leaders and workers have been martyred over the recent months in different areas of the state at the hands of the forces of reaction. All Party members and Party sympathisers have been called upon to donate a day�s income / wage to help the martyrs� families.

DARJEELING

SITUATION

The meeting also discussed the Darjeeling situation. The CPI(M) would stand opposed to the demand for a separate state and at the same time carry out a massive campaign statewide on such issues as peace, development, and democracy. The CPI(M) attaches the highest importance to the maintenance of peace, amity, and unity amongst the hill and the plains people.

The Bengal unit of the CPI(M) has also issued a general appeal to the people of the state and to the different political parties to work towards maintaining peace and order everywhere and at all levels.