Battlefield Tripura

Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi wax eloquent against insurgency, it says the Congress party cannot give up its conspiracy to prevent CPM supporters from exercising their franchise in inaccessible tribal areas, and to organise attacks on CPM leaders and activists .

It Congress has formed an alliance once again with the INPT, known to be the political mask of the NLFTBM, an outlawed extremist organisation, according to the CPM. The article further says that the Congress-INPT leaders have been reported to have held secret meetings with extremists over a few months past at several places in Mizoram, Meghalaya and Assam. 8220;However, the venue has shifted to certain South Indian towns now due to the flashing of news of such secret meetings in local newspapers. It has also been disclosed that leaders of extremist organisations have been haggling face to face with central leaders of the Congress party,8221; says the PD article.

It further says that the Congress had goaded the separatist movement in the state after its defeat in the 1978 and 1983 assembly elections.

In a 8220;conspiracy8221; on the eve of the February 1988 assembly elections, TNV extremists butchered 91 people. Accusing Chief Minister Nripen Chakraborty and Deputy CM Dasarath Deb of being the creators of TNV, the Rajiv Gandhi government at the Centre unilaterally promulgated the Disturbed Areas Act in entire Tripura, which enabled the Congress-TUJS combine to steal its way to power, says the CPM. 8220;Leader of the TNV killers, Bijoy Hrangkhawl, and his extremist organisation were rewarded by Rajiv Gandhi for this feat,8221; according to the article.

It further says that 400 CPM leaders and activists had been brutally killed by 8220;Congress goons8221; by 1993 when the Left Front came back to power.

Report with a flaw

The CPM comes down heavily on the National Human Rights Commission NHRC for its report on Nandigram, terming it as a 8220;stereotyped mixed bag8221; and 8220;the mark of a hasty, somewhat one-sided, cobbling together of facts8221;. An article in People8217;s Democracy says that the report also betrays serious lapses of 8220;omission8221; and 8220;commission8221;. The NHRC had indicted the Left Front government for its failure to stop CPM and Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee activists from indulging in violence.

According to the CPM, the report, which passes 8220;adverse judgement8221; on the role of the Left party and the Left Front government in West Bengal, does not reveal the basis on which investigators had come to their conclusions. Disputing the NHRC8217;s conclusion about the role of the CRPF, the CPM says that the commission did not take cognisance of hundreds of cases of harassment of CPM workers that the same CRPF units had indulged in from the time they were posted in camps.

Budget 2008-09

The CPM wants the UPA government to effect a 8220;mid-course correction8221; in the next budget, terming it the 8220;last opportunity8221; to fulfil its commitment in the national common minimum programme.

An important feature of such a course correction must necessarily be radical measures to address the continuing agrarian distress, says the PD article, seeking a substantial increase in public investment in agriculture. It wants loans to farmers to be given at four per cent interest rate.

Instead of utilising the surpluses accruing through higher tax returns to finance public investment, it says the 8220;preoccupation8221; is to reward the corporate sector with further tax concessions. One big hope that people have from this budget is relief from the relentless price rise. The two most important measures to achieve this, it says, is to prohibit essential commodities from speculative forward/futures markets and to strengthen the PDS, says the editorial.