Left Front calls for political consensus on agitation mode

The Left Front chairman, Biman Bose, has proposed today that the Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee should convene an all-party meeting to evolve consensus on the issue of refraining from the practice of blocking roads and railway tracks for agitations. Yesterday, while submitting the demand for additional budgetary allocations for her ministry in the Lok Sabha, Mamata Banerjee had appealed to the CPI(M) members to desist from damaging the Railway properties in the name of pursuing their agitations.

Today, the Left Front discussed this at their meeting and later Biman Bose told the media that not only the railway tracks, blocking of roads should also be avoided, hinting at the growing incidents of road blocks caused by Mamata's party- the TMC- in the state. For this, a consensus should be built among the political parties after discussion in an all-party meeting. Bose feels that the initiative for holding such meeting should also come from Mamata Banerjee.

At the same time, he reminded that while the Left Front had been regular participant in such exercises, it is the TMC which avoided attending all-party meetings in the state. In the last two years, a number of meetings were convened by the state government to build consensus on the issue of Gorkhaland agitation and Singur movement, but the TMC did not take part in any of these.

Though steadily losing popular support in the state, the Left Front has decided to make a last ditch attempt to project the ruling establishment as pro-poor and regain some of the lost ground. While Mamata is busy in an image makeover from a rabble rouser to a responsible leader who is pro-development, Bose's call for an all-party meeting indicates that the Left leaders are also trying to pin her down on the same issue.