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Journalism of Courage
Admitting for the first time in the backdrop of the Nandigram violence that the CPI(M) had failed to foresee the strong public reaction to the Left Front government’s bid to acquire farm land for industries, party patriarch Jyoti Basu has advocated a cautious approach in the matter.
“We had not foreseen the strong public reaction. We should have tried to convince the people beforehand. We should have tried to raise their consciousness. There was some misunderstanding. But the misunderstandings will be overcome,” the 93-year-old Marxist leader was today quoted as saying in an interview to the CPI(M) mouthpiece Ganshakti.
Basu, who backed the CPI(M)’s allies and forced Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to climb down on the issue of acquiring land for industries in Nandigram, reiterated the need to industrialise the state, but called for a cautious approach in this regard. “Now that a land map has been prepared, we will have to go by that map to avoid any trouble in future,” he said.
Basu said some recent events like the incident in Nandigram—where 14 people were killed in police firing and violence on March 14—had created misunderstanding within the CPI(M) and among partners of the Left Front.
Referring to allegations by partners that the state government was being run as a CPI(M) administration and that the allies were not consulted in major decisions, Basu said: “If there is lack of coordination we have to admit and rectify it…People have to be convinced that it is a Left Front government and not a one-party government.”
Virtually echoing the charge of the partners, he said that the core committee of Left Front ministers was “not at all active”. “There are allegations about the functioning of this committee. This committee has to be activated. There should be frequent meetings,” the former CM asserted.
In an apparent reference to Left Front partners RSP, CPI and Forward Bloc holding meetings among themselves on the Nandigram issue, Basu said, “It is not right to form a front within the Front. I appeal to the Left Front partners not to do so.” He called for more bilateral discussions between the CPI(M) and other Left Front partners to sort out thorny issues.
Alleging that Opposition parties were misleading people by resorting to untruths, Basu said: “They are killing our workers, torturing them and making them homeless, and also carrying out an untruthful campaign.”
