Bring new bill renaming township after Jyoti Basu, CPI-M tells Mamata

Upping the ante on its protests against scrapping a bill naming a township in the city's eastern suburbs after former chief minister Jyoti Basu, the CPI-M Thursday demanded the West Bengal government introduce a new legislation restoring the name.

A day after Governor M.K. Narayanan disapproved of the Trinamool Congress government's move to withdraw a bill passed by the erstwhile Left Front regime that had named New Town as Jyoti Basu Nagar, Leader of Opposition Surjya Kanta Mishra said the Left would continue to protest till they got "justice".

"We want that a bill should be brought in, amending the exclusion of Jyoti Basu's name from the nomenclature of the township. In other words, we want an amendment of the amendment that the government has done (by withdrawing the earlier bill)," Mishra told reporters here.

Thanking the governor for his stand, he said: "Unless and until we get justice our protests will go on."

Speaking to reporters on the sideline of a programme here Wednesday, Narayanan had said: "Well, I'm certainly not in favour of change of name."

The Mamata Banerjee regime Tuesday withdrew in the state assembly the New Town, Kolkata Development Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2011 passed by its predecessor Left Front that had included a proposal to name the New Town area as Jyoti Basu Nagar.

Disregarding strong protests from Left Front members, the government replaced the legislation by the New Town, Kolkata Development Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2013, which had no provision about the township's nomenclature.

The township, conceived during Basu's tenure, was named after him through a gazette notification in 2010. The New Town, Kolkata Development Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2011, had a clause which referred to the nomenclature.

Railing against the government move, senior CPI-M leader and former housing minister Gautam Deb termed it as an example of "partycracy" during the current dispensation.

Deb said without Basu's leadership, New Town - a modern satellite township - would not have been a reality. "He gave me total freedom. He rendered whatever help I asked for. Why shouldn't New Town be named after such a legendary leader?"

Claiming that all government procedures had been followed and completed in naming New Town after Basu, Deb accused the Trinamool regime of indulging in falsehood and "fraudulent" actions to delete official records related to the issue.

Deb refered to the role played by Basu in naming another sprawling township Salt Lake after the state's second chief minister Bidhan Chandra Roy - who belonged to the Congress.

"Jyoti Basu spent the last years of his life in a government guest house named after Indira Gandhi. He took prompt measures to rename Salt Lake Bidhannagar after Roy following request of a Congress veteran."

Warning the Trinamool government not to play with the sentiments of the people, who hold the late leader in high esteem, Deb said: "I hope good sense will prevail. There will be no need to seek legal remedy or hit the streets".