Date:26/12/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/12/26/stories/2007122653651200.htm

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Basu: Congress failed to tackle communalism

Special Correspondent

Kolkata: The Congress has failed to initiate any effective programme against communalism and imperialism and this will have to be taken up by the Left forces “as the Congress is dependent on the Left parties and the Left parties dependent on the Congress” to keep at bay communal forces like the Bharatiya Janata Party, veteran Marxist leader Jyoti Basu said here on Tuesday.

“A complex political situation” was emerging in the country “and this is why we [the Left parties] are forced to adopt this line,” Mr. Basu said in reference to the BJP’s victory in Gujarat.

“If the communal forces get the upper hand, India will cease to exist as India,” he cautioned after being felicitated by the Coordination Committee of Central Government Employees.

It was on the basis of a Common Minimum Programme agreed upon by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance and the Left parties that the BJP had been kept out of power at the Centre. But it was regrettable that the government had not been abiding by the provisions of the CMP adequately, Mr. Basu said.

He also underlined the need to take forward the drive for greater industrialisation in West Bengal.

“The concern is addressing the problem of unemployment, but without setting up new industries how can we solve the problem,” Mr. Basu asked.

“We had never opposed industrialisation in the past but only insisted on certain rights of workers like that to strike and form unions.” Investments were reaching the State from overseas on the basis of mutual benefits.