500,000 attend annual Left rally in Kolkata

Prakash Karat says bringing Congress and BJP to power would mean encouraging capitalism and communalism

The Left Front on Sunday intensified its campaign against the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal from its annual rally at the Brigade Parade grounds here, in what turned out to be its biggest show of strength in recent times.

Around 500,000 people turned up for the Left rally, more than the crowd strength at Banerjee’s rally on January 30 (400,000-450,000) but much lower than what it used be when in power. Narendra Modi’s rally last week was lower at 250,000 people, though unusual for a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rally in Kolkata. The capacity of the Brigade ground is around 600,000.

Though the ground has been traditionally a Left bastion, the alliance was under immense pressure to ensure party workers turned up in large numbers. “It was challenging, given the intimidation that workers had been facing from the ruling party,” a Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader said.

Left leaders made it clear that though the impending election was to form a government at the Centre, its main enemy was the Trinamool Congress. Most of the state-level leaders took up local issues and failures of the state government.

CPI (M) general secretary, Prakash Karat, however, said bringing the Congress and the BJP to power would mean encouraging capitalism and communalism. The economic policies of the  BJP and the United Progressive Alliance were the same, he said.

The other Left leaders chose to take on Banerjee on unemployment, lack of industrialisation and law and order issues.

 

 "Singur and Nandigram have become graveyards. Where are the jobs. All the factories are closed, nothing is happening even on theinfrastructure front. Whatever has happened was done in our regime,"CPI(M) leader and former West Bengal Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said.

 

 RSP leader and a former minister in the Left Front government, Kshiti Goswami, raked up the TMC's involvement in the Saradha controversy. "Whose coffers have been filled with Saradha's money," he asked.

 

Left Front chairman, Biman Bose, appeared particularly exuberant with the turnout and challenged the media to show any empty pocket in the Brigade ground. Today's rally comes immediately after the Rajya Sabha voting where cross voting by two Congress MLAs and three Left MLAs ensured four seats for the TMC out of five.