By IANS,
Kolkata: Smarting under a series of electoral debacles, West Bengal’s ruling Left Front Monday sought to pep up the morale of its cadres ahead of next year’s assembly polls by talking of mass struggles and promising to rectify its mistakes.
Addressing a rally on the 33rd anniversary of the Front’s uninterrupted stint in power, its leaders alleged that a combination of money power and muscle power, with the active support of some foreign agents, was in play to end the reign of the Left parties.
Senior Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader and Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said during its long years of governance, the Front has moved forward through constant self-evaluation and soul-searching. “We have made mistakes. And whenever we realised our mistakes, we rectified them”.
“Similarly, a section of the population is questioning the correctness of our policy to acquire land for industrialisation. If we have indeed made a mistake, we have to be careful,” he said.
Bhattacharjee said the Left Front government was conscious about its mistakes. “We have rectified some of them. If still poor people are hurt, we have to soothe their injury”.
Calling upon the Front workers to launch struggles in the interest of the peasants, workers, and the toiling masses, he said: “We have to fight against high prices and inflation as also the dangers of courting multinational corporations which the Bhopal Gas tragedy has shown”.
Bhattacharjee attacked the opposition’s slogan of “Change is needed”, saying: “What change are they talking about? What does that mean? The only change they are capable of making is to push the state towards lawlessness.”
Reminding the packed audience at the 20,000 capacity Netaji Indoor stadium that the state had received investment worth Rs.7,000 crore last fiscal, the chief minister said it was his strong belief that no one could stop the pace of industrialisation.
Left Front chairman Biman Bose said the government would have to take strong steps to check lawlessness which the opposition is trying to create in the state. “I find muscle power and money power is at work. There is a conspiracy in which foreign forces are involved to stop the march of the left forces”.
Asking the Front partners to bring the poor people together, he said: “We won’t allow any force to snatch the rights of the poorer sections of the society”.
The Front, which came to power on June 21, 1977, has recently fallen on bad times after losing last year’s Lok Sabha poll, followed by assembly by-election and two rounds of civic polls. Observers feel it faces a tough task to retain power in next year’s assembly elections.
Leaders of all nine Front partners participated in the rally.