BENGAL LF ELECTION CAMPAIGN COMMENCES

Unity Of The Poor Must Be  Further Solidified: Biman Basu

B Prasant

THE CPI(M) and the Bengal Left Front (LF) must solidify the unity of the poor and the exploited through intense campaign in the run up to the Lok Sabha polls, and make the LF candidates victorious by winning at least 51 per cent of the votes polled. CPI(M) state secretary and convenor of the Left front Biman Basu said this at Liluah in the industrial belt of Howrah on March 10, 2009.

Inaugurating a local committee office of the CPI(M), Basu made it very clear that the Left Front would emerge victorious in the vast majority of the Lok Sabha seats in Bengal; whether there is an alliance of the opposition or not would not really matter when things came to a crunch. There is a vast web of conspiracy being spinned against the Bengal LF. Participating in the process is the rainbow coalition of the spectrum from the sectarian left to the reactionary right, the foreign-funded NGOs, the various foreign interests themselves.

The principal aim and content of the election campaign was to make the democratic and secular people of the state aware of the true portents of the opposition to the LF and to further enhance their political vigilance. He expressed confidence that the unholy alliance would be rejected out of hand by the people of Bengal, who are matured in their political overview over the years and decades. Basu assured the vast gathering that the electoral fall-out of the rural polls would not affect the Lok Sabha polls and for a few specific reasons.

• In the rural and civic polls absolutely local issues affecting the locality become involved

• The Lok Sabha polls represent the big picture in political, developmental, and socio-ideological terms

• The rural polls, or for that matter the by-elections, have an ad hoc character to them as the end result would be neither the formation of the government nor the constitution of the highest and largest parliamentary body

• Also, the assembly polls are judged by the electorate as the performance quotient of the state administration and the Left Front that runs the government

Regarding the long-winded discussions going on between the two main rightist contenders for the �gat-jod� in Bengal against the Left Front, Basu pointed that it was never the headache of any sort for either the people or the popular LF, or for that matter the LF government that shall continue to serve the poorest of the poor. The CPI(M) and the Left would surge ahead for a �third alternative� that would ultimately prevail, come the post-poll scenario. The alternative would thwart the anti-people divisive forces, including the religious fundamentalists.

WIDEN AND DEEPEN

MASS CONTACTS

Contact, in the meanwhile with the people, especially the poor, must continue unabated, and to widen and deepen these contacts stressed the CPI(M) state secretary. People must be listened to and lessons learnt, and then the mass contact further widened -- this being a continuous process, bringing to mind Mao�s dictum of �from the people and to the people.�

When people approach the Party office or the Party organiser, they must be given a good hearing, political will being of great importance here in terms of appreciating what the people have to say. If the people�s demands / wishes cannot be met, the �reasons why� must be carefully, non-irritatingly explained with patience, again with politics in command. The Party organiser must not play willingly or through oversight the hateful role of the proprietary overlordship of the capitalist vis-a-vis the humble worker when dealing with the general masses, the masses that love the Party and support the Party in every manner possible for them in the reality of evolving circumstances.

Biman Basu once more reminded the gathering that Marxism contained the dictum of praxis and a Party organiser must keep firmly in mind that the pledge to fight to the very end for the upkeep of the interest of the people must occupy his every living moment. The elections provide one with the opportunity to go closer and deep amongst the people, listening to what they say, and acting accordingly yet as per the dictum of the Party. Every effort to create chasms within the ranks of the masses must be prevented well before the thought transforms into deleterious action on the part of the sectarians, the reactionaries, and their minders as well as their lackeys.

NIRUPAM QUESTIONS

OPPORTUNISTIC MAHAJOT

Addressing a Party convention at the Dinabandhu Manch at Siliguri the same day later, Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M) Nirupam Sen launched a trenchant attack on the opportunistic attempt to build up a rainbow coalition in Bengal come the Lok Sabha polls. The CPI(M) and the Left, the LF government�s industries minister pointed out, progressed through many a hazard, political and otherwise to stand at the place it did today � in the hearts-and-minds of the masses of the people of Bengal. Very many Party comrades have had to face martyrdom unflinching staring open-eyed at death before the cowardly and heinous attacks of the class enemy.

Nirupam Sen outlined in some detail the anti-people endeavours of the succeeding NDA and UPA governments. He said that �we had supported the UPA government from outside based on the pro-people aspects of the Common Minimum Programme (CMP). The principal aim of the Congress-led alliance government, �we were not lacking insight to find out sooner than later,� said the CPI(M) leader, �was to do a sell out of the country and the nation to the imperialists.�

Yet �we persisted,� said Sen, �with our pro-people efforts and kept mounting pressure on the Congress leaders to fall in line with the CPI(M) and the Left.� When things got out of hand with the unclothed lust of the UPA government to toe the imperialist line even militarily, putting to jeopardy the nation�s security and integrity, after toeing their dictates on the economic and financial fronts, the Left chose to bow to the people�s will and withdraw support, leaving the UPA as a minority entity in the parliament. How they �acquired� a majority is now history.

The presence of the Left prevented the Congress ruling elite from floating the pension funds in the share bourses. The presence also stopped in its tracks the inchoate and widening net of privatisation of even profit-earning PSUs. Comparing the outlook of the Left Front with that of the Congress-run central government, Nirupam Sen pointed out that compared to the Rs 20,000-odd crore of rescue package the latter would strive to undertake, the former was quick to float a package of Rs 5106 crore, financial constraints of a heavily biased financial framework nationwide notwithstanding.

Our task, he said, was to keep the masses united. Those who were going in for an alliance were anti-development and against the industrialisation of the state. Sen asked the Congress the reasons why it would not hesitate to kow-tow before those very dark forces that would put a sudden stop to the process of development itself whilst encouraging divisive forces of every kind. How could the Congress explain the raison d��tre of the proposed alliance when the now-warm, now-cold would-be partner sat through sessions of political blueprinting with separatist forces and would not officially close up the ties with the religious fundamentalist right, the BJP-RSS combination?

Countering effectively the propaganda of the separatist elements in the north of the state and elsewhere, he said that Jharkhand and Uttarakhand were examples that smaller states did not do any good to the people, rather the opposite in terms of development and prosperity for the masses. It is the CPI(M) and the Left that had fought for the recognition of the Nepali language in the Constitutional schedule. The imperative was not to divide but to unite the people. Nirupam Sen concluded with the assertion that the recent example of the BJD coming closer to the Left showed that in the days to come it would be the CPI(M) and the Left that would act as the powerful catalyst for a �third alternative� nationally.