— Photo: Sushanta Patronobish

AIMING HIGH: Veteran CPI(M) leader Jyoti Basu addressing a public rally organised by the CITU at the Salt Lake stadium in Kolkata on Sunday.

KOLKATA: Urging the people to ensure the Left Front's victory for the seventh time in a row and better its record of six successive terms, veteran Marxist leader Jyoti Basu said here on Sunday that it would continue to safeguard the workers' right to strike, "which should be invoked, however, only as a last resort." "Unlike [in] other parts of the country, we do not employ the police to break up strikes or hartals; we have granted State employees the right to strike but this should be an alternative only if talks with the Government [on the issues at hand] fail to make any headway," Mr. Basu, senior member of the Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and former West Bengal Chief Minister, said.

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said the Government did not favour removing hawkers from the streets without providing them alternative means of employment. "Pedestrians as well as hawkers should be allowed to use these public spaces, and the police would ensure that the former are not inconvenienced."

The leaders were addressing a rally organised by the State committee of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions in support of the Left Front. Elections are scheduled in the State from April 17.

"We have a responsibility not just to the people of West Bengal but to the entire country to ensure a seventh victory of the Left Front in the coming Assembly elections. They [the rest of the country] will learn from us," Mr. Basu said. "Nowhere in the world has a government been returned to power for six successive terms, and we will have to better that record."

The nonagenarian leader said, "I had to resign [as Chief Minister] before the sixth term of the Left Front Government because of failing health. I do not know how much longer I'll live, but I want to see the Left Front being returned for the seventh term.""In the last Assembly elections, we won 51 per cent of the votes. This time around we must strive to win more votes and also Assembly seats," Mr. Basu said.

He ridiculed the Trinamool Congress' alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party, "a communal party."

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