Correct mistakes,win back people’s support,Basu tells partymen

“In the last Lok Sabha election many voted against us. We have to correct our mistakes. We have to bring them back to our fold. We have to regain their confidence. The people are our hope in difficult times,” he said.

Basu also accused the Trinamool,Congress and Maoists of killing CPM workers,setting their houses and party offices on fire.

“We have to counter it by mobilising the people. We should not lose confidence in the people.”

He said the people would not bow down to anarchy and realise “who was their friend and who their foe”. Basu said the common people were facing hardships due to the Centre’s policies with ever rising prices of essential commodities. The CPM and other left parties were launching a movement against hoarding and black-marketing.

Recalling the Food Movement,Basu,who was the then Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly,said when lakhs of people thronged the streets,police under the then Congress government had resorted to a brutal lathi-charge,in which 80 people were killed on this day in 1959.

He said despite the killing and atrocities of the then Congress government,we did not surrender. “The Food Movement ushered in a change in the state’s politics. It was a historic mass movement,” he said.