CPM rivals talk tough
Posted by barunroy on January 17, 2008
Siliguri, Jan. 16: Kanu Sanyal, the veteran CPI-ML leader, today challenged the major Left Front constituents like the All-India Forward Bloc and the RSP to come out of the government and the Front, adding that only in case of their quitting the government and the Front would they gain some credibility to talk about an alternative Left alliance. Terming the recent proposal by the general secretary of the All-India Forward Block Debabrata Biswas about formation of an alternative Left alliance as “bogus”, he said that the people were not as gullible as the leaders generally thought them to be. “I met Forward Block veteran Asoke Ghosh in Calcutta when the first firing on the protesting Nandigram people took place and asked him to quit the government and the Left Front in protest against the state barbarism. However, that did not happen and they remained in the government. This is the reality. They will keep on talking tough, yet they will never overcome the greed of loaves and fishes of office. In this situation how can they convince the people of their sincerity to the opposition to the present government?” he asked.In reference to a question over the present condition in the tea gardens in north Bengal, the veteran Naxalite leader said that the government was determined to destroy the tea plantations. “The ruling party is concerned about money and nothing else. Selling of tea plantations to the real estate developers will fetch huge amount of money. They are cutting deals with the industrialists and selling vast stretches of land for new plantations. These new plantations in connivance with the ruling party are doing everything to ruin the workers. They are being deprived of provident fund, gratuity and other facilities which the plantation authorities are bound to provide under the Plantation Labour Act,” he added.He further said that his party might go for road and rail blockade if the plantation authority and the state government remained indifferent to the demand of the tea plantation workers for clearance of all their dues and strict implementation of the Plantation Labour Act in all the tea estates in the states. (SNS)