CPI(M) reaches out to the Congress

Former West Bengal chief minister and Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Saturday urged the Congress to join hands with the CPI(M) in saving West Bengal from the state's ruling party, the Trinamool Congress.

"We ask the Congress, which side are you on? We need to be together to save West Bengal," Bhattacharjee said in Singur, where he flagged off a protest march against the Trinamool Congress-led government's anti-industry policies. Bhattacharjee's efforts to reach out to the Congress are understandable.

In the 2006 Assembly elections, the Left Front had got a vote share of 40 per cent, the Congress nine per cent and the Trinamool Congress 39 per cent; the Trinamool Congress and the Congress had an alliance then. The Left is hoping that an alliance with the Congress this time around could queer the pitch for the ruling party, which is almost sure to win in the upcoming Assembly elections.

Bhattacharjee took on Mamata Banerjee's government for failing to take the industrialisation drive - spearheaded by him during his term as chief minister - forward.

"There is no scope for employment generation in the state. The youth of Bengal don't have a future. We are going backwards. No new factories have come up in the last five years," he said.

He assured that the Left had experience on its side. "We will save Bengal. We need agriculture and industry. Agriculture will be our foundation and industry will be our future," Bhattacharjee said.

Singur, the site for Tata Motors' global small car project, Nano, has always been close to Bhattacharjee's heart; the project was announced jointly at Writers' Building right after he was sworn in as the state's chief minister for a second time.

But an indefinite agitation by "unwilling" farmers -accounting for 15 per cent of the total land losers - led by Banerjee, who was then a part of the Opposition, led to Tata pulling out of the project.