A Writers’ Buildings gate locked during Tuesday’s bandh (Photo by Gopal Senapati)
FROM THE TELEGRAPH
BY ASHIS CHAKRABARTI
Calcutta, April 28: As he walked down an empty Writers’ Buildings corridor to his office yesterday, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee presented a bizarre picture — of a chief executive presiding over a vanished job.
Still more bizarre was the fact that his own comrades took the job away from him. The image that captured it best was that of the lock that the members of the co-ordination committee of government employees, an affiliate of the CPM, had put at the secretariat gate.
Gone were his Do-It-Now cry and his big-bang industrialisation crusade. All he seemed to have been left with was the coming end with a whimper, symbolised in his attending office but having no work to do.
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee - betrayed by comrades, so quickly ?!!
If Bhattacharjee found his government had withered away even while he was still in office, it was as much his party’s fault as his own.
Soon after he led the Left Front to a resounding victory in 2006 on his aggressive development campaign, the chief minister seemed to know where his real challenge lay. It was not so much Mamata Banerjee, who was demoralised after a humiliating election defeat; the biggest challenge for him was to break the shackles of his party and its politics of coercion.
In private conversations, he singled out militant party colleagues, especially leaders of Citu, and the party’s education cabals, as the biggest enemies of promise. Industrialisation and higher education were two areas he seemed to have identified for his major offensive. If Citu was the main hurdle in industrialisation, party control was the bane of higher education, he would confide to circles close to him.
Citu's debilitating culture of violence and bandhs ?!!
He may have identified the enemies but showed little stamina in fighting them. The result was written all over Bengal yesterday when Citu took the lead in forcing the bandh. For those who have watched CPM-sponsored strikes in Bengal for over four decades, the most remarkable thing about yesterday’s show was the ubiquitous presence of Citu on the street.
If any further proof were needed to know that the chief minister had lost his battle with Citu, it was there all over the state yesterday.
CPM leaders privately argue that they needed to make the bandh a “success” in order to re-activate party cadres ahead of the coming elections to 81 municipalities in the state. It would be the party’s last trial of strength before next year’s Assembly polls.
If yesterday’s show was more aggressive than recent Left-organised strikes, it was because the party wanted to tell the cadres that offence was not just the best but the only defence for the beleaguered party.
For its sympathisers and the people at large, the message of the bandh was that the party was still alive and kicking.
In all this, though, the party’s voice — and not the chief minister’s — rang aloud. This bandh may have served as the final proof that Bhattacharjee has finally and irretrievably lost himself in his party. He continues to be the chief minister, but he stays only that — sans development, sans industrialisation and sans any work that he wanted to make his own.
Presidency University
One last thing carries the stamp of his earlier ambition — the Presidency University bill. He has resisted the pressures of CPM-affiliated government college teachers in order to push it.
On the eve of the 2006 Assembly elections, he spoke of his wish to see that at least five colleges are given autonomous status — which would free them from the control of his party’s education clique.
(As for Presidency College, he even mentioned one teacher, who was a CPM leader, by name, who, he said, “runs the college”.)
But the recent electoral reverses have forced Bhattacharjee to surrender back to the party. For all his bold wishes, he made too many promises with the party, allowing it to eventually thwart his agenda. It may have all begun with the chief minister failing to stand up against the party diktat on the choice of his cabinet in 2006.
Even in the best of times, he failed to tell the party that the government was his — and not its — business.
If Bhattacharjee is receding into the party’s shadows now, he had sowed the seeds by not defying it enough.
Left changes election tack – Politics focus, not civic score
The Vande Maataram shift ?!!
FROM THE TELEGRAPH SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Calcutta, April 28: The Left Front will rely less on civic issues and more on price rise, unemployment and the “Maoist-Mamata nexus” for the municipal polls because of their political significance before next year’s Assembly elections.
Releasing the front manifesto, chairman Biman Bose today described the May 30 civic polls as a “political struggle” and laid stress on a “political campaign” against the Centre’s “anti-people policies”.
In a recent closed-door workshop to fine-tune strategies for the campaign, industries minister and CPM politburo member Nirupam Sen is learnt to have referred to last year’s Siliguri Municipal Corporation polls to point out that the Left lost the board despite good civic work.
“This result underlined the changes in the overall political mood and we have to fight it politically by keeping tab on the people’s pulse,” a CPM state secretariat member said.
The CPM and its allies find price rise a potent plank to regain its lost ground among urban poor and middle classes, especially after what they dub the “success” of yesterday’s general strike.
“We will tell the people how the central policies will only add to the woes of the aam admi, already reeling under staggering price rise. The price index… will go up further before the polls in May,’’ said Bose, also the state CPM secretary.
Mamata Banerjee in the firing line ?!!
As the front is also trying to woo job-seeking urban youths, many of whom are new voters, Bose accused the central departments, particularly the railways headed by Mamata Banerjee, of refusing to provide jobs “despite lakhs of vacancies”.
For the urban poor, the manifesto harped on the “pro-poor policies” of Left-run civic bodies.
The new sops include a 99-year land lease to those living on government land for more than 20 years, apartments for slum-dwellers and policies to regularise street vendors.
While the CPM and its allies will train their guns on Trinamul for its “anti-development role and politics of anarchy in connivance with Maoists”, Bose said, the Congress will be their principal adversary in districts like Malda and Murshidabad.
Asked about the absence of BJP bashing in the manifesto, Bose denied its relation to the CPM’s growing floor co-ordination with the party. “The manifesto deals with the civic polls in Bengal and not in Jharkhand (where the BJP is a major force),’’ he said. While stressing repeatedly on the “political significance” of the civic polls, Bose also admitted that they were meant to improve civic amenities.
Left throws in the towel on Trinamul turf – Absent in 50% wards
The drastic dip ?!!
FROM THE TELEGRAPH CORRESPONDENT
Tamluk, April 28: Practically wiped out from large parts of East Midnapore since the Nandigram episode, the Left Front has been unable to field candidates in 50 per cent of the seats in Tamluk and Contai municipalities.
Of the 40 total seats in the two municipalities, the front has fielded candidates in 19. In the 20-seat civic body in Tamluk, the front has candidates in 11. In Contai, it will contest eight of the 20 seats.
In 2005, the front had contested 16 wards in Tamluk and all 20 in Contai.
The number of CPM candidates in the fray has come down to 10 from 20 in the two municipalities. The nine other seats the front is contesting have been divided among the CPI (5), West Bengal Socialist Party (2), RSP (1) and the Forward Bloc (1).
Although the ruling front has lost ground in many parts of the state, particularly in south Bengal, East Midnapore, perhaps, represents the worst-case scenario.
This is the first time the front is fielding so few candidates in any municipal poll in the district in the three decades of its rule in Bengal.
“We had trailed in all the wards in these two (Tamluk and Contai) municipalities during the Lok Sabha polls last May. We had also trailed in all the wards of Contai during the bypoll to the Contai (South) Assembly seat last November. So, this time, we have fiel-ded candidates only in those wards where we have the possibility of winning,” said Ashok Guria, a CPM district secretariat member.
An East Midnapore CPM leader admitted that they were giving up without a fight. “We have no other option. We are being force to give up without a fight because we have lost our support base heavily across the district.”
The front had trailed heavily in hundreds of municipal wards across the state in the Lok Sabha polls. For instance, in the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, front candidates lagged behind Opposition nominees in 119 of the 141 wards.
Asked why the alliance cannot contest all the wards in Tamluk when it can do so in Calcutta, the front leaders of East Midnapore were evasive.
“The decision to field municipal candidates is taken at the local level. We are not con-cerned about what is happening in other places. We have decided to field candidates in 19 wards and we might offer support to some Independent candidates,” said Kanu Sahu, district CPM secretary and front convener.
Although Contai municipality has been under Trinamul control for the past 10 years, the Left had snatched Tamluk from Mamata Banerjee’s party in 2005.
After Trinamul swept the panchayat polls in 2008, seve- ral Left councillors, including one from the CPM, switched to Trinamul, leading to a collapse of the board. Mamata’s party is now running the board after winning a vote of confidence.
Tamluk’s Trinamul MP Subhendu Adhikari said the people had rejected the front in East Midnapore after the Nandigram movement against land acquisition. “This rejection was reflected in the panchayat and Lok Sabha polls. The Left Front will also be rejected in the municipal polls,” Adhikari said.
Mamata list, 25 for Cong
TMC Gen Sec Partha Chatterjee after releasing the list. (Photo by Anindya Shankar Ray)
FROM THE TELEGRAPH SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Calcutta, April 28: The Trinamul Congress tonight announced candidates for 115 of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation’s 141 wards, leaving 25 for the Congress and one for the SUCI.
Stunned by the sudden announcement, at a time discussions were on over their demand for 51 wards, Congress leaders called it a “one-sided” decision and sent an SOS seeking state party chief Pranab Mukherjee’s intervention.
“This is a one-sided decision by our ally and unacceptable, which is why we have sought Pranabbabu’s intervention,” said central Calcutta Congress president Pradip Ghosh, who had been overseeing the seat-sharing talks. “We have also sent Pranabbabu a list of 83 wards where we are confident of winning on our own. But the final decision rests with Pranabbabu.”
State Congress working president Pradip Bhattacharya refused comment.
While releasing the Trinamul list, party secretary-general Partha Chatterjee said it was the final one. “We have waited and discussed at length at Mamata’s level and all issues had been taken up,” Chatterjee said.
“Since the last date for filing nominations, May 3, is approaching, we have decided to announce the final list. We have already offered 25 seats to the Congress. Keeping Mamata Banerjee at the helm, we must ride this wave of change and keep a united front. There should be no straining of relationship (with the Congress) and keeping the honour and faith of the people we should jointly defeat the Left Front. We hope good sense will prevail and the Congress will join us in defeating the Left Front.”
Today’s list did not name a candidate for mayor, but party sources said the scales were tipped in favour of councillor and Ballygunge MLA Javed Khan.
“The announcement of the mayoral candidate has been kept in abeyance,” Chatterjee said. “Let us first win the polls… then we will decide who will be the mayor.”
Of the 115 candidates, 50 are women and 23 from the minority community, including Rizwanur Rahman’s brother Rukbanur. The list includes another MLA, Firad (Bobby) Hakim, and former mayor-in-council member Sovan Chatterjee.
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