Left best, claims Jyoti Basu

The Left Front in West Bengal has given the best possible package to families whose land had been acquired for industries, to farmers in the country, and to investors keen to set up factories in the state, veteran CPI(M) leader Jyoti Basu said here.

In an exclusive interview to the CPI(M) party newspaper Ganashakti, translated and circulated by the CPI(M) on March 29 evening, Basu said he would like the formation of a third front government at the Centre as both the Congress and BJP had followed policies that he called “anti-people” and a the foreign policy that allegedly made the country subservient to the interests of the United States of America.

“Many people are coming to build industries in the state. We have to be on the path of industrialization to cater to the job prospects of the unemployed youths of our state. Nowhere in the country has so much compensation given and rehabilitation schemes been taken for the benefit of the land losers whenever the state and Central government are acquiring land for public purposes”, Basu said.

“The opposition is creating roadblocks in the way of development of the state and is coming in the way of creating employment opportunities for the unemployed youths of the state. They want to put the state into back gear”, he alleged.

“The government is trying to develop industries in our state along with the development of agriculture. We are the first in the country in agriculture and we are trying to develop it further. Not a single case of farmers suicide has happened in our state. We are the frontrunner in the country in social forestery, pisciculture, and in many other parameters. We have distributed more than 13 lakh acres amongst the poor landless farmers of our state”, said Basu.

Responding to the allegation that the Left had ignored the minority community, Basu said the Left was working towards upliftment of Muslims as they were financially, socially and educationally in a backward position, and so developed many madrasahs, paid madrasah teachers from state funds, paid special stipends and loans and set up a new Urdu academy while a major portion of the 30 lakh odd farmers who received land under the land reforms programme in the state were from the minority community.

Basu alleged that in the past also, the opposition was against any industries coming up in the state and central policies ruined industry in West Bengal, so that the Left Front government had to start afresh on efforts to industrialize the state but had to wait for 11 years to get the sanction of the Centre for Haldia Petrochemicals.

He said Left parties supported the UPA on the condition of adhering to the implementation of the common minimum programme but the Congress committed an act of treachery with the people of the entire country by not adhering to the common minimum programme, replacing India’s independent foreign policy with one adhering to the interests of the USA.

Basu warned that the Congress had continued with policies that had been taken by the BJP which had resulted into the rout of BJP in the previous election.

Basu said he backed a Third Front government which would work for the benefit of the common people, pursue a secular policy in combating the danger of communalism and follow an independent foreign policy to build a self-reliant economy and not a dependent economic policy.

Basu alleged that in West Bengal, the anti-Left alliance formed under the Trinamool and the Congress included political groups which were extreme rightist, and wanted to break the territorial integrity of the state and to break the state into small pieces with secessionist forces, and even terrorists.