Former West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee yesterday expressed alarm over the policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s regime in the state.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) veteran also called for removing the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Trinamool Congress to save the country and the state.
Ahead of the crucial 2016 assembly election, the CPM organised a massive rally at the Brigade Parade Grounds here, at the start of its five-day plenum aiming to strengthen the party organisation.
Presiding over the rally in the presence of general secretary Sitaram Yechury and other politburo members, Bhattacharjee exhorted party activists and supporters to win the upcoming battle - the next year’s election.
“The condition in the country is not good. The BJP is spreading poison, spreading fire, and the country will be ruined. This BJP is snatching away the bread of the poor, we have to remove the BJP. So the first call from this rally is ‘BJP hatao, desh bachao’ (Remove BJP, save the country),” Bhattacharjee said, as the crowd vociferously reciprocated his call.
He then called for the removal of the Banerjee-led Trinamool government.
“The condition of our state is alarming. This government has taken the state on the verge of destruction. This state is bankrupt, people here don’t have a future, youths don’t have a future, industry is not coming, only suicides are taking place.
“This government is of the anti-social. This can’t be allowed, so we call for ‘Trinamool hatao, Bengal bachao (Remove Trinamool, save Bengal),” Bhattacharjee said, egging on the crowd to repeat his words.
Exhorting party activists to prepare for the 2016 polls, the veteran leader said: “There is a big battle ahead, and we have to be prepared. But we will not merely fight the battle, we will fight it to win it. We have to win it.”
Politburo member Brinda Karat charged the Trinamool Congress and the BJP with having a tacit understanding.
“The communal BJP and the RSS, they are known to break the country and not unite it. We will not yield even a single inch to them. The Trinamool and BJP, they wrestle outside but inside they are friends,” said Karat.
“At a time when the Modi government is attempting communal polarisation, we need to have a strong voice coming from Bengal. This is not the fight of the Left alone but the fight for Bengal, fight for the entire country,” she said.
Referring to the lynching of a man in Dadri in Uttar Pradesh and the killing of Dalit children in Haryana, Karat wondered why the Trinamool did not protest when the whole country was doing so.
“When the whole country was protesting, people were returning their awards against the Dadri lynching and killing of children in Haryana, the Trinamool MPs were nowhere to be seen. Where were they?” she asked.
“Well, they were either in jail or on bail for the Saradha,” said the Marxist leader referring the multi-billion rupee scam in which several of Trinamool leaders have been indicted.
Karat also slammed Banerjee for West Bengal topping the country in terms of crime against women.
“Such is the state of affairs that having a woman chief minister, Bengal leads the country in terms of crime against women,” she said.
“I am not saying such crimes don’t happen in the rest of the country, but in Bengal we have the chief minister who makes insensitive comments on rapes or tries to cover them by calling the incident as fabricated,” she said.
In his address, veteran Marxist leader Biman Bose lambasted the Banerjee government for attacking democracy.
“Unless and until we are able to reinstate democracy in Bengal, our fight for workers, farmers, common people will never materialise. We have to uproot the Trinamool and establish democracy,” said Bose.