Like the central ministers behind the bars for their involvement in the 2G Spectrum and the Coal Gate scams, prison await the TMC leaders for their involvement in the Saradha chit fund scam. It is for this reason that the nervous TMC government is vehemently opposing a CBI probe into the ponzi scam, remarked CPI (M) General Secretary Prakash Karat. He was speaking at an election meeting organised in support of the Left Front candidate of North Kolkata Rupa Bagchi, on 7th of May. He said that the people of West Bengal have realized why the Mamata government is wary of a CBI investigation into the Shardha scam, whereas the Assam, Tripura and Orissa governments have already asked for a CBI inquiry into the scam in which the money of 17 lakh people have been looted.
Karat said that hints have already been dropped by Modi of a future pact between the TMC and the BJP. He added that people’s experience of the Congress led UPA II government, has shut any possibilities of them coming back to office. Communal forces, like the BJP are trying to take advantage of this anti-incumbency factor. It is only a non Congress-non BJP–secular alternative that can challenge the growth of communal forces, he asserted.
He said that neither the Congress, the BJP, or the TMC is talking of the policies that would pursue during the course of the next 5 years and they all stand for the continuation of the same anti-people policies. Only the Left is talking of a government based on alternative policies; minimum wage of 10000, controlling the spiralling price rise, universal rationing of 35 kilos of food grains at Rs 2 a kilo.
Attacking the TMC state government, he said that the people’s sufferings has increased in the last three years. Agrarian crisis is spreading fast in the state, crimes against women are rising and so are the attacks on the democratic rights of the people.
He said that the Left Front provided an example of maintaining communal harmony during its rule in the state. While Sikhs were attacked in various parts of the country following the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and when riots took place in the build up to and the aftermath of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, West Bengal was untouched.
May 7, 2014