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Wednesday, Jun 22, 2005

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National

Left Front will comfortably win Assembly polls: Basu

Special Correspondent

"Our victories in the recent elections are a reflection of the people's consciousness"

— Photo: Sushanta Patronobish

SHARING JOY: Children greeting CPI (M) candidate for Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharjee and his wife after the Left Front swept the Kolkata Municipality election in Kolkata on Tuesday.

KOLKATA WITH T: he Left Front having won comfortably in both the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and Bidhannagar elections, veteran Marxist leader and former Chief Minister of West Bengal, Jyoti Basu, said here on Tuesday that he was confident the Front could win two thirds majority in the Assembly elections due in June 2006. The day marked the 28th anniversary of the Front in power in West Bengal.

"I think a situation has come when we can look forward to winning more than two thirds of the seats in the Assembly [a majority that it now enjoys] ... "if we continue to execute our policies correctly. But there is no room for complacence," the senior Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M) told a Bengali television channel.

Unique distinction

"We have already won elections to the Assembly six times before," Mr. Basu said. "This is unique in [the history of] parliamentary democracy in India that with a limited strength we have been able to achieve this."

"Our victories in the recent elections held in the State like in the panchayat polls a few months ago and the civic elections to 79 municipalities across the State last month are a reflection of the people's consciousness and because we have been able to execute our programmes," Mr. Basu observed. "We believe that it is the people who shape their history and when at times they go wrong we tell our workers to reach out to them. The result is more and more people are coming to [our fold]," the veteran CPI (M) leader said.

The question of unity

"Our responsibilities have increased" now that the Left Front has completed 28 years in power, Mr. Basu said. On the question of unity within the constituents, he recalled, " this was not always so - we had our differences in the United Front and then the Left parties realised with experience the need to get together for, there was no alternative to a strong coalition government."

"90% of promises met"

"Ninety per cent of the promises we have made since first coming to power have been met. The remaining 10 per cent we have not been able to because of our failures which we need to admit and not to lie to the people about," Mr. Basu said. "My party has a membership of nearly 2.77 lakh and certain corrupt forces have entered who need to be singled out and some of whom have been expelled."

Opportunity for Congress

The Opposition in a parliamentary democracy should in no way be undermined "and there are certainly people who still oppose us," Mr. Basu said.

"But what do they do with a party [Trinamool Congress] which broke up and failed to keep its promises in the course of five years of power [in the KMC]?"

On the question of who in the Opposition would be emerging as a major player now that the Trinamool had been divided he said, "there is no doubt that the Congress could now get some opportunity."

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