Bengal LF Commemorates Sixth Electoral Triumph

B Prasant

A MASS of rallies, conventions, and processions all over the state marked the first anniversary of the electoral triumph of the Bengal Left Front for the sixth straight time.  The programmes were organised on afternoon and the evening of May 13 under the aegis of the Bengal Left Front and its district units.

In his lengthy and important address to a packed-to-capacity gathering at the Kolkata University centenary hall, state secretary of the CPI (M) Anil Biswas identified reforms, development, and mass struggle as the three platforms for organising the future tasks of the Left Front and the Left Front government in Bengal.

The sixth Left Front government, Biswas declared, needed to take up a fresh perspective on developmental programmes while utilising the rich inheritance of experience of the earlier LF governments.  The way towards matching the development perspectives with the evolving realities, said the CPI (M) leader, lay in the undertaking of a wide variety of reform measures in the tradition of the land reforms and the Panchayat reforms that the state was already a witness to.

The parameters of development went on increasing over the years and the decades, said Biswas, and all the while, the LF government had to work within the constraints of the existing structure of centre-state relationship.  The developmental programmes themselves have brought forth fresh challenges.  For example, said Biswas, the land reforms and the agrarian changes in the rural areas contributed meaningfully to the rapid increase in agricultural production.  The task now was to ensure that the farmers got remunerative prices for their crops as well as marketing outlets. 

The rapid pace of urbanisation has seen the number of urban local bodies like municipalities and corporations go rapidly up.  Urbanisation itself, however, has brought in its wake additional demands for development of the social infrastructure in a big way. The urban middle class has grown in a remarkable manner and at a fast pace.  The number of graduates and post-graduates has increased more than three-fold since the late seventies.  While keeping intact the interests of the basic masses comprising the workers and the peasants, the Left Front and the Left Front government needed also to take proper cognisance of the demands coming forth from the middle classes of Bengal, said Anil Biswas.

The administrative decentralisation measures have resulted in an increasingly larger number of people taking part in political activities all over Bengal.  The task before the Left Front, stressed the CPI (M) leader, was to ensure that the corresponding level of political consciousness of the participating people did not lag behind in any manner.  The three-pronged strategy of development, reforms, and mass struggle must be utilised to this end, said Biswas.

Anil Biswas referred to the unsettled political ambience of the months and weeks that preceded the 2001 assembly elections.  He recalled with pride how the so-called anti-incumbency factor never got to bother the Bengal Left Front in the final analysis although a section of the media appeared hell-bent to prove that the Left Front would surely be shaken out of office this time around.  “Even some of our friends,” quipped Biswas, “ were not-too-sure that the media pundits were as usual not right.”

The Trinamul Congress, the self-confessed champions of the anti-Left forces in Bengal, plumped for opportunism above every other issue and chose, recalled Biswas, to side with the Pradesh Congress while not bothering to come out of the BJP-led NDA.  The Trinamul Congress also resorted to a scurrilous campaign of slander and organised tie-ups with extremist outfits to run loose a reign of terror in the districts of Bankura, Hooghly, and Midnapore in south Bengal while repeating the pattern in north Bengal districts like Darjeeling, Coochbehar, and Jalpaiguri.  The Left Front had to pay a heavy price as more than 300 LF workers were martyred in the run up to the polls.

In this background, declared Biswas, there took place what was virtually a mass uprising against the forces of reaction, and a blow in favour of the Left Front across the state.  The fitting reply that was in the event handed out to the Trinamul Congress and its cohorts, and the resultant two-thirds majority chalked up by the Left Front in the polls, said Anil Biswas, once again proved the highly developed political insight of the democratically-minded people of Bengal.

In the days ahead, said Anil Biswas, the electoral triumph must be consolidated and one must always remember that the untrodden path would always throw up new challenges to confront the pro-people existence of the LF government.  The Left Front itself must be further strengthened on the basis of mutual consultation and coordination, and more and more Left parties must be asked to join in the programmes being held as part of the all-India agenda of the Left.  The mass movements and struggles must be further stepped up and the ambit of allies must be expanded in an appropriate manner.

In conclusion, the CPI (M) leader served a warning.  Elements of religious fundamentalism were ever active to try to disrupt the situation of peace and amity prevailing in Bengal.  The geographical position of the state made it vulnerable to incursions, covert and overt, from across the borders.  The Naxalite factions (and with whom the Trinamul Congress maintains an alliance of convenience) are always ready to renew, and in a big way, armed assaults on the Left.  The evident interest of certain foreign powers in ensuring that a regimen of destabilisation overwhelms Bengal is another worrying factor.

There was no cause for self-satisfaction.  Relentless struggles and movements must be continued to augment the developmental programmes of the Left Front government whose base must be further strengthened, and the trust and the confidence the masses repose in the Left Front and the Left Front government must be renewed constantly with increased vigour, said Anil Biswas.

Other speakers on the occasion were: Prasanta Kumar Sur and Raghunath Kushari (CPI-M), Satya Bhattacharyya (CPI), Nihar Roychoudhury (Forward Bloc), Parimal Routh (RSP), Moni Pal (Socialist Party), and Ratanlal Agarwal (Democratic Socialist Party).  Prasanta Kumar Sur who is the convener of the Kolkata Left Front presided over the meeting.  The Madhya Kolkata unit of the IPTA treated the massive gathering with rousing renditions of mass songs, Rabindrasangeets, and Nazrulgeets.