People's Democracy

Thirty Three Years of Bengal

Left Front Govt Commemorated

                   B Prasant

A QUIET determination marked the rally held under the aegis of the Bengal Left Front at the indoor stadium in downtown Kolkata during the afternoon of June 21, 2010.  A pledge was assured from the rally that the development of the state would continue apace and the forces of anarchy would be resisted.  The top leadership of the Left Front addressed the rally.

The Left Front chairman Biman Basu said that the path carved out by the Left Front in Bengal especially from 1977 was hardly strewn with flowers.  It had been a tough struggle and until now more than 2500 Left workers had to lay down their lives.

Drawing attention to the present conspiracies being woven against the Bengal Left Front, the speaker said that past US representatives in India had mentioned in their writings how funds were made available to the anti-Left forces from abroad.  This was in addition to the role played by the Indian ruling classes in terms of money and muscle.

The present attempt at breaking up the concerted Left Front drive to uplift the poor and to speed up the process of economic development of Bengal was part of that old game plan.  The speaker dwelt on the various developmental aspects of the policies of the Left Front government.  He also said that the Left Front would amend its ways wherever it has strayed, and shall sharpen the struggle against imperialism, capitalism, and reactionary forces.

Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said that Left politics to the fore in Bengal as elsewhere meant the ongoing brightening prospects of the masses of the people, especially the poor.  The Bengal Left Front government has worked to the best of its abilities for the poor and the backward sections of the masses.

The Left Front government has no other interests to look to except for those of the toiling people. If in organising its tasks and in implementing them, any deviations and errors had taken place, the Left Front government would put in appropriate corrective measures and forge ahead in the days to come. The speaker mentioned the increasing imperialist intervention in India of late and spoke of the communal menace. 

The speaker called for a wide struggle to be built up against such moves. The CPI(M) leader noted the achievements of the Left Front government and spoke of future programmes of pro-people development.  He called for a struggle against all counter-democratic elements and their political outfits.

CPI leader Swapan Bannerjee, veteran Forward Block leader Ashok Ghosh, RSP leader Kshiti Goswami along with leaders from  RCPI (Mihir Baine),  BBC (Umesh Chowdhury), MFB (Pratim Chatterjee), DSP (Ratan Majumdar) and WBSP (Kironmoy Nanda) spoke in the meeting  which was presided over by Left Front chairman Biman Basu. At the start of the programme,  one-minute silence was observed in the memory of the 2586 martyrs of the Left Front  who have  sacrificed their lives to protect the Left Front in the state from reactionary forces. 

A cultural programme was also held by the artistes of IPTA at the start of the programme. Huge cut-outs of the two late architects of forging the Left unity in the state – an  unique example before the country for the last 33 years – Comrades Jyoti Basu and Pramode Dasgupta, the first chairman of the Left Front in the state, hung from the two sides of the stadium  along with numerous  graphical banners highlighting the achievements and  ideology  which forms the basis of the exemplary Left unity  in the state.

The 33 years of the Bengal Left Front government was commemorated in big rallies across Bengal. The size of the gathering would be enough to convince a political observer to note that the Left Front has not seen its mass base corroded in the fields of struggle. Leaders of the Left Front constituents were present in all the rallies.