Kolkata, Jun 21 : A CPI(M) proposal to hold a rally against the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government on June 25, coinciding with the imposition of Emergency in 1975, has been struck down by other Left Front partners.
A Left Front meeting held yesterday on the rally was stormy where the proposal by the CPI(M) was dubbed as “exaggeration”, and instead it was proposed to highlight the issues of price rise and “terror” against its workers. Veteran RSP leader and former minister Khsiti Goswami said that it was his party which first objected to making the Emergency an issue at the meeting.
The meeting was stormy with shouts and counter-shouts as CPI(M) leader Robin Deb argued that Left leaders had earlier approved the programme at an earlier meeting, he said. “In the name of protest against atrocities against Left activists, we should not recall the days of the Emergency. This will be nothing but an exaggeration and will send a wrong political message to the people.
“Mamata Banerjee has received a huge mandate in the Assembly elections. People will not accept it,” Goswami said. State secretary of the CPI Manju Kumar Mazumdar said “The meeting therefore decided that the rally will be held as planned, but rising prices and terror will be highlighted.”
Mazumdar argued: “The new government should be given some time to act. If we link pre-poll violence with the Emergency, this will not be a politically correct move by the Front.” “The present government has completed only one month in office. It is not the time to draw such a parallel,” he said.
Leader of LF constituent Forward Bloc, Hafeez Ali Sairani, said “We are ready to take to the streets against price hike of essential commodities and on threat to our party workers, but that not in the name of Emergency.” Former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee, CPI(M) state secretary Biman Bose and other Left leaders will take part in the rally on June 25, Kolkata district Left Front convener Dilip Sen said.
“The rally will be to safeguard democracy, individual liberty and peace,” he said.
Sen alleged that 16 LF workers were killed and 617 injured in attacks since May 13 when the assembly election results in West Bengal were declared. Left partners CPI and Forward Bloc had recently alleged that if the warnings by partners that the Left Front was losing ground were not ignored by major partner CPI(M), the rout in the recent Assembly elections could have been averted. PTI
