People's Democracy

Bengal Left Front Flays UPA Govt On Price Rise Issue

B Prasant

THE Bengal Left Front in a meeting at the Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan recently sent out a strong message to the UPA government. The LF firmly warned the union government to pay attention to the price rise of articles of common consumption, and to be less obsessive in allocating administered time to the proposed nuclear deal with which it seemed to be obsessed, under pressure or otherwise. Biman Basu, Left Front chairman, presided.

CHECKING PRICE RISE

The Left Front meeting noted that prices of common commodities started to shoot up – and that this had been going for some time now. The UPA government in complete disregard of the provisos of the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) remained nonchalant about strengthening of the public distribution system (PDS). Hoarding was on the rise as was black marketing, and racketeering in essential commodities.

This situation was not quite within the capability of government operating in a state to tackle in a comprehensive manner on its own. It really devolved on the union government to take up the challenge of the dark forces and put a stop to the inchoate rise in prices. This the UPA government would not own up in any manner. It would rather spend its energies and initiatives to try to fulfil the demands made on it by the US imperialists to bow low before the dictate to sign the ruinous nuclear accord.

PROTEST DEMONSTRATIONS

The Bengal Left Front has resolved to organise statewide protest demonstrations in the bazaars and the mandis, as well as before offices of the union government against the shooting up of prices of essential commodities. The programme would be held between September 20 and 30.

The LF meeting also saw Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee explaining in some detail the status report of the process of industrialisation till date. Buddhadeb noted that six steel mills were coming up, two each in Purulia, Midnapore west, and Burdwan. There would a total investment made of Rs 76,000 crore. The IT sector is being further expanded. There has been a recent initiative from Germany to start daily Europe-bound, out and return flights by their national carrier Lufthansa from Kolkata.

The metro rail would undergo, assured Buddhadeb, an east-west expansion spanning Salt Lake with Howrah. There would set in place an elevated mass transit system for the metropolis in the not-too-distant future, to ease the problem of vehicular and pedestrian traffic.

Biman Basu told the media later that apart from regular LF meetings, bi-partite meetings of LF constituents would be held, as a further step towards enhancing and consolidating the unity and integrity of the Left Front.