No deal

Knowing well that there is no time left for the current US Congress to pass the 123 agreement, President Bush wants to ensure that at least the nuclear deal will remain as a legacy to be taken up by the next president and there will be some certainty if the NSG clearance is got before his term expires, he says.

Capital issue

In an interview with CPM daily Ganashakti, published in ‘People’s Democracy’, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee admits that support for the Left among the masses has eroded in the state. He identifies weaknesses of the CPM and its mass organisations, the disunity amongst Left constituents, and the “spread of a baseless fear on the issue of land acquisition” as the reasons for the erosion of support.

On the key question of private capital that is connected to industrialization, he admits that there is no “viable alternative.”  He claims that confusion has been created amongst the ranks of the opposition parties, the LF constituents, and even amongst a section of the people. “We are fully seized of the indecision that the LF constituents are affected by on the question of private capital, big capital, and capital of the MNCs,” he says.

A new Left

In an article titled, “Bengal Left Front steps into 32nd year”, Biman Basu mentions the recently held Panchayat elections, and says that political events around the rural polls were different from what had happened in the past. 

“This year was unique in a different way.  First, the actual number of seats mostly at the level of the gram panchayats, and less so at the other two tiers of panchayat samiti and zila parishad, had gone down. This set up a regime of ground-level difficulties to some extent in the formation of a deep understanding amongst the Left Front constituents.  Second, there did develop with persistence some political difference among the LF parties,” he says.

“On the other hand, a strange ‘cocktail’ (if I may use the term) was mixed up to serve as the ‘Bengal opposition’ comprising the whole range of forces — from the extreme right to those on the sectarian left and almost everything in between, including forces of religious fundamentalism,” Basu says.

Meetings of the Left Front in the post-election situation have resolved that we must consolidate the agricultural achievements of Bengal, widen the arena of cropping, go in for more diversification, he says. “Industries cannot very well be set up in the sky…. Thus, we must succeed in earning the confidence of the people of the area where such industries would be set up.” he says.

“We must take a solemn pledge as the Left Front and the Left Front government enter the 32nd year, that we have associated ourselves in the political process not for our own sake but for the sake and interest of the people and the nation,” Basu concludes.