People's Democracy

B Prasant

WHY is there such unity in the Left Front � down to the booth level on the ground � in the run up to the Lok Sabha polls, whereas such unison was at least marginally absent in the Panchayat elections of 2008?

All the Left Front leaders with LF chairman Biman Basu in the van gave a strong response to this repeated query from the media representatives at the Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan in the late morning of April 27, 2009. They asserted that primarily the unity of the Left Front must be distinguished clearly from the �alliance� of the Trinamul Congress and the Congress. The Left Front unity was based on class struggle and mass movements.

The Trinamulis have allowed change of hands as far as electoral partners were concerned for the fourth time now from 1998. The anomaly is that the lone Trinamul Lok Sabha MP�s seat is with the NDA as is that of its Rajya Sabha representative. The �unity� with the Congress is as ephemeral as the promises scattered left and right, of the Trinamuli leadership. Any slip up in the Lok Sabha elections and the Trinamulis would be sure to slip back to the BJP-led NDA.

LF APPEAL TO

THE PEOPLE

Narrating the seven-point united appeal of the Left Front to the people, Biman Basu said that the LF appeals to the people to make its candidates victorious in all 42 Lok Sabha seats

• To ensure that a Third Front-led government is installed in Delhi

• To augment self-reliant economy, independent foreign policy, and to set up a model federal structure

• To defeat the Trinamul Congress which represents anarchism, terror, and disorder and is backed by forces of reaction both here and abroad, and their allies including Congress, as well as the communal forces that the BJP represents

• To maintain an ambience of peace, democracy, and communal harmony

• To ensure that there is a consolidated and integrated development of agriculture, industry, services, and that social justice prevails in every realm

• To keep alive the Left alternative economic policy to counter the present economic crisis

• To ensure that Bengal remains one and united

UNTRUTH

ABOUT PURULIA

Answering questions on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi�s remarks made at a meeting in Purulia in which he made a bitter comparison of Kalahandi with the entire district of Purulia, Biman Basu asserted that these remarks reeked of untruth all the way.

The following statistics are relevant in support of the CPI(M) leader�s contention that comparison between Kalahandi and Purulia was odious, untrue, and motivated. Leave apart, Kalahandi, Purulia is indeed more advanced than Rae Bareli-Amethi, the carefully cultivated and nurtured backyard of the Nehru-Gandhi family.

Indicators (%) Rae Bareli -Amethi Purulia

• People BPL 54 31

• Urban population 07 11

• Family with electricity 14 29

• Landline telephone 6 6

• Per capita expenditure Rs 385 Rs 461

• Work participation 34 45

• Work participation women 24 37

• Literacy 62 63

• Vaccination 16 84

• Neo-natal deaths 83 (per 1000) 46 (per 1000)

• Fatality below five years 160 (per 1000) 89 (per 1000)

Source: Government of India, various publications including the National Sample Survey, and the latest Household and Facilities Survey Vol. III, passim.

Thus, as Biman put it, Rae Bareli-Amethi is perhaps more like Kalahandi and not Purulia, although there are lots of fresh developmental works needed in the Bengal district of the rain-shadowed laterite zone that, however, could not be taken up because of the successive union government�s intransigence.

LESSONS FROM

THE RURAL POLLS

Veteran Forward Bloc leader Ashok Ghosh freely admitted that during the last Panchayat elections there was disunity amongst the Left Front in 9400-odd of a total of 64,000-odd rural constituencies at three levels of Panchayat, Panchayat Samity and Zilla Parishad. Senior RSP leader Debabrata Bandhopadhyay said that the largest number of seat disagreements then was at the behest of his party vis-�-vis the CPI(M), about 7500. Such differences no longer existed, now more than ever.

Both these leaders and the Bengal CPI secretary Manjukumar Majumdar declared that the effort this time would be to send as many candidates of the Left Front as possible to Delhi to form the core of the Third Alternative that grew in strength with the political participation of the Left. The Panchayat level disunity, the CPI leader pointed out, left behind lessons that were being adhered to during the present Lok Sabha polls with the LF enjoying a rock-solid unity.

Continuing in a self-critical vein Biman said that the rural polls saw the Left Front gather 52.76 per cent votes and the two Congresses, Pradesh and Trinamul 14.3 per cent and 24.60 per cent respectively. Yet, the LF lost out on two Zilla Parishads. The Left Front this time aims to send out 42 MPs to Delhi to strengthen the Left presence in the Lok Sabha.