April 27, 14.55 PM IST || Pocket News Alert
“ONLY COSMETIC DEVELOPMENT HAS TAKEN PLACE IN BENGAL IN TRINAMOOL RULE: CONGRESS MP Pradip Bhattacharya
“TRINAMOOL HAS CLOSED DOWN MORE INDUSTRIES IN BENGAL IN 5 YEARS THAN WHAT LEFT DID IN 34 YEARS: BJP’s Chandra Kumar Bose
KOLKATA, 27 APRIL: CPI national secretary Atul Kumar Anjaan has said that there is a possibility of the Left-Congress electoral alliance of Bengal getting replicated at the national level in the coming days.
He was speaking at Aaj Tak’s Panchayat Paschim Bangal ~ an interactive session centering the on-going Assembly polls in Bengal ~ held in a city hotel today noon.
“If Congress reverts to the welfare policies of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi and raises the voice of the millions of the toiling masses, we shall be happy to be part of a grand alliance for the people,” Anjaan said.
This is even as the CPI national secretary maintained, the Left’s poll tie-up with Congress in Bengal was a “need based alliance to rescue the state from the dire situation it has been pushed into by Trinamool” and that the tie-up could not be called a “Mahajot.”
Congress MP Pradip Bhattacharya, who too participated in the session said, it was good that the Left were changing their stance on many issues for the larger good of Bengal in particular and India as a whole.
“We backed Trinamool in 2011 Bengal polls hoping it would usher in an all-round development. But in the past five years only cosmetic developments have take place in the state. Real issues like industrialisation and employment creation were put to the backburner as the Mamata and her ministers were busy with cine stars and in one festival after another.”
Saying that Congress has tied up with Left for the development of Bengal, he added, everything was possible in politics. “Politics changes colour in view of the emerging situation. Even Mamata Banerjee has embraced Abdur Rezzak Mollah, who once killed Trinamool workers when he was in the CPI-M.”
Taking part in the debate, Trinmool MP Vivek Gupta hit out at the Congress reminding it that the very CPI-M with which they have now tied up “had shot dead 13 Congress workers in Kolkata on 21 July 1993.” “It is Mamata Banerjee, who till date observes the day as martyrs day, while the Congress has forgotten the sacrifice. It is now hobnobbing with CPM.”
BJP leader and grandson of Netaji, Chandra Kumar Bose, who is fighting the election against Mamata Banerjee from Bhowanipore in Kolkata, interjected in the debate saying that it was time Bengal got a “just government that not only speaks but also listens to the people.”
“Congress and Left have had done enough damage of Bengal since Independence. The Left drove out many industries from Bengal during its 34 years rule. But in the past five years, Trinamool has closed down more industries in the state that the Left could not in 34 years,” Bose said. “Hence, time has come that Bengal got a new government to rescue it from the grim situation and only BJP can offer such a government.”