Rebel Marxist Rezzak Mollah floats new outfit

Deriding the "upper class hegemony" in governments and political parties, rebel CPI-M leader Abdur Rezzak Mollah Sunday floated a pro-Dalit and minority outfit, resolving to install a Dalit chief minister in West Bengal.

Mollah said the new organisation "Social Justice Forum", which will be converted into a political outfit, will contest as many as 185 seats in the state assembly polls in 2016.

"We are not against any caste. But so long as there is upper-class hegemony in the government, parties and administration, the welfare of dalits, downtrodden and minorities will never happen," he said at the organisation's maiden public convention.

Besides having a Dalit chief minister, the organisation has resolved to bring in a Muslim home minister and deputy chief minister as well as giving other important portfolios to other backward classes (OBCs).

The convention was attended by several religious leaders from the minority communities. Another rebel Marxist leader Lakshman Seth too professed his support for the new organisation.

Known to be vocal against his own Communist Party of India-Marxist leadership, particularly politburo member and former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Mollah - an assembly member without any break since 1972 - however refused to comment about quitting the party.

"I cannot be a part of two different parties simultaneously but whether I am going to quit and when I will do it, I will decide later," said Mollah, a CPI-M state committee member.

Even as Mollah asserted he was not against the Left Front, the former minister said the fight was against the "regimented Left and the club cultured Trinamool Congress".

"Since votes only decide everything, we will walk the poll way. But we have a tough fight ahead. We have to find our way between the regimented Left and the club cultured Trinamool.

"But that doesn't mean I am against the Left or talking in favour of Trinamool," said Mollah as he accused the successive state governments of indulging only in "lip-service" rather than working for the welfare of minorities.