In an unusually candid admission, the CPI-M blamed corruption and dishonesty among its leaders at the village level for the party’s poor show in last month’s panchayat elections across the state.“Not everybody in the CPI-M-controlled zilla parishads, panchayat samitis and gram panchayats is honest. We have corruption in our functioning. Even though they are few in number, we have to find out how this happened,” CPI-M state secretary Biman Bose told a party meeting at Sutahata in East Midnapore district on Sunday.Asserting that Communists do not work for personal gain or to accumulate riches and property, Bose, who is also the Left Front chairman, said many partymen and their family members had done just that which had not gone down well with the people.Accusing the leaders of party-led village level bodies of arrogance, he said they distributed funds and materials given by the state government for the people as if they were distributing their ancestral wealth.“Eta ki tader baap thakurdar taka? (Is it their fathers and grandfathers’ money they are doling out?),” Bose said.He also accused partymen of having grown wealthy over the years at the expense of the Marxist party.“You did not even have a cycle once, but now you flaunt cars and houses. Where did you get the money? Funds are given for the benefit of the people.” People noticed that our partymen were growing richer by the day and they didn’t like it, Bose said.“You should look at yourselves in the mirror and compare what you were like. What you see reflected in the mirror now is your own blackened and mud-spattered face,” he said.Party workers were supposed to keep in touch with the people 365 days a year, but they had grown detached from them, he said adding that “sometimes even I fail to keep in touch with comrades”.“We have committed mistakes. We have discussed this at the state committee. We have to rectify them,” Bose said.He also blamed the reverses on the ‘informal alliance’ of Congress, Trinamool Congress, Left opposition party SUCI, Jamiat-e-Islami Hind and others and said added that disunity among Left Front partners were also another contributory factor to the poor show. “People became confused,” he said, “by these factors and voted for the Opposition.“We failed to make people understand the good work done by us.” Maoists blow up railway tracks Patna, June 2 (PTI) CPI (Maoist) ultras today blew up railway tracks in Jamui district, disrupting movement of trains on Patna-Howrah main line, and looted several sacks of foodgrains from a FCI godown during the 24-hour shutdown called by the outfit in five East Bihar districts.The bandh was called to protest the arrest of five Maoist activists.The activists of the proscribed outfit also blasted a portion of the office of the Sub-divisional Officer of Kharagpur in adjoining Munger district, police said.Passengers of the Gorakhpur-Howrah Poorvanchal Express had a miraculous escape when the cargo van of the train ran on the breached down track barely minutes after it was blown up between Narganjo and Ghorparan stations in Jamui district around 3.20 am, Superintendent of Railway Police, Jamalpur, Vimal Kumar said.The cargo van of the train attached to the guard’s cabin got derailed when the motorman applied emergency brakes.As the train came to a halt, the Naxalites fired a volley of shots on the guard’s cabin and retreated.There was no casualty in the incident, railway sources said, adding traffic was restored on both down and up line at 9.30 am.Several trains including Howrah-Delhi Janata Express, Howrah-Danapur Express, Tata-Gorakhpur Express, Tata-Danapur Express and Amritsar-Danapur Express were stranded at various stations.
