Signs of a closely fought battle surface
The ruling Left Front in West Bengal held a massive rally today at Kolkata's Brigade Parade Ground where the chief minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee and the Front chairman Biman Bose gave a clarion call to unite against the Maoist-TMC alliance and defeat them in the coming state assembly elections.
Buddhadev Bhattacharjee warned today that if the efforts to curb the Naxal menace did not succeed in the Junglemahal of West Bengal, anarchy would spread in the state. He reiterated his allegations that the TMC led by its leader Mamata Banerjee was helping the Maoists.
“The TMC is supplying oxygen to the Naxals in their bid to spread violence and political instability in the state. If we fail to check them in the three districts of junglemahal, then it would have disastrous consequences for the state," said Bhattacharjee.
Biman Bose declared that the Left Front would now leave no stone unturned to organise the people for the coming election. There were at least a few lakh people who thronged the Brigade Parade Ground, indicating that the Left have been able to reorganise their organisations and motivate them to put up a last ditch fight against the serious threat they are facing from the Mamata Banerjee led opposition.
Mamata Banerjee scorned at the Left and sarcastically said that the rally was “the farewell party" for the Left. But she was however seemed to be in the back foot on the question of corruption charges against the UPA government.
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Earlier today at Brigade rally, the CPI (M) leaders including Bhattacharjee, reminded the people of Bengal that the TMC remained silent on the issue of corruption involving senior ministers of UPA government of which they were also partner. Mamata was evasive while reacting on the issue.
The preparation for the Brigade rally was taken up by the Left Front with full seriousness as they considered it to be a morale-booster for their supporters. In the last few months the rural Bengal witnessed unabated violence. While Maoists continued with their rampage and indiscriminate killings of poor villagers, their activities remained restricted to three districts of Junglemahal.
But in other parts of rural Bengal political clashes continued between the ruling and the opposition party. In the mean time the Election Commission has sent a number of observers who have been visiting the areas and assessing the situation. Already the Election Commission has indicated that it would be a challenging job to keep the election process free from violence.
The CPI (M) leaders today reminded their supporters that this time the Left were facing serious political challenge from opponents.
Referring to the call for change given by the opposition leader Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister warned, "They want to change the present order. They want to take away the rights and entitlement earned by the poor in the last three decades of Left rule. Given a chance, they would like to take back the land given to the poor and landless peasants and give that to the former landlords."
He also admitted that a section of party leaders became arrogant and trying to boss over the ordinary people, for that the entire Left movement in Bengal had earned bad name. His advice to those erring leaders was to amend them without any delay. He was also accepted that the state government's initiatives to set up industry in Singur and Nandigram because of people's resistance. A number of people had left the party. He urged his party men to give extra effort to bring back those disillusioned people to the party's fold. It is difficult to assess how far today successful rally would help the Left in the coming assembly elections. But, at least the rallies proved the point that the Left Front had been able regain its touch with the grass root organisation. That means the coming election would be going to be a closely fought battle