Date:27/05/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/05/27/stories/2008052755031000.htm

National

CPI(M) asked to take people into confidence

Special Correspondent

KOLKATA: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) in West Bengal will have to take the people into confidence in a greater measure on issues related to the acquisition of land for industry.

This was emphasised at a two-day meeting of the CPI(M) State Committee that ended here on Monday.

A preliminary review was made of the outcome of the recent panchayat elections held in 17 districts earlier this month. Party general secretary Prakash Karat was present at the meeting.

“This is not a rollback or slowing down (in the State’s industrial programme); but the policies are to be undertaken by taking the people into confidence in a greater measure when it comes to the question of utilising land for any particular industry”, said Committee secretary Biman Bose.

“Industrialisation will continue but at the same time things will have to be done with the confidence of the people,” he said.

Though the Left Front won a majority of the rural bodies in the panchayat polls the reverses it suffered in certain areas could be attributed partially to the failure to effectively stand up to the tirade against the government’s polices on industrialisation and development as well as the often inadequate response to the “lies and the malicious” campaign launched by the Opposition on these matters, the meeting noted.

The Opposition had also been successful in creating some confusion on the issue of land acquisition. Moreover, probable shortcomings in the functioning of some of the erstwhile rural bodies as well as the political spin-offs of the failure to arrive at seat adjustments between certain Left Front constituents had contributed to the setbacks suffered by the Left parties in the polls, the Committee observed.

Disunity within the Left Front, evident in certain areas, had affected the fortunes of the Left parties, the Committee noted. There has been an absence of understanding over seat adjustments in earlier rural elections also. Had political campaign been carried out in areas where such an understanding was lacking the reversals might have been contained, Mr. Bose said.

The Committee also elected 15 members to the party’s State Secretariat. Two entrants to the body were Transport Minister Subhas Chakraborty and Mohd Salim, party MP.

Mohd Amin, Polit Bureau member and all-India general secretary of Centre of Indian Trade Unions, was relieved of his responsibilities in the State Secretariat in view of his commitments to the party at the central level.