Congress president Sitaram Kesari yesterday warned the United Front government not to expect unqualified Congress support if it indulged in blatant anti-Congressism.
Speaking at an unimpressive rally organised by the state party unit at Calcuttas Brigade Parade ground, Kesari said the rise of communalism was a dangerous sign.
He said the Communists were among those who helped the Bharatiya Janata Party gain respectability and grow in legislative numbers.
Earlier West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu was hanged by the rally crowd. The hanging of the larger-than-life statue of the countrys best known Communist leader was the high point of an otherwise tame and dull 160-minute rally organised by the Bengal state Congress Committee and presided over by Kesari.
Basus nearly 15-feet statute was waiting to be hanged at the elaborately erected gallows since Tuesday.
The Congress leaders from the dias went through the procedure of asking the permission of the meetings crowd among the lowest in the history of Brigade rallies-if Basu deserved to be hanged.
As the crowd roared in amused approval, the hangman put the piece of black cloth around Basus head. The lever was pulled and the noose tightened.
The body got lowered in the well below to complete the mechanics of a virtual hanging.
This is how the Bengal Congress president Somen Mitra planned the beginning of the partys assault on the Red citadel of the Marxists.
Kesri, who has nearly seven decades of experience in Congress politics, reminisced about the partys legendary leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru and Netaji Subash Chandra Bose (who had to leave the party after differences with Gandhiji) who were responsible for building up the secular character of the party. Only the Congress is best qualified to talk of secularism, he said.
Mitras worst fears came true with the meeting having a poor turnout. State Youth Congress president Mamata Banerjee and other leaders in her camp kept their promise to boycott the rally. Even a fence-sitter like Priya Ranjan Das Munshi was conspicuously absent. If Wednesdays show was to demonstrate Mitras organisational abilities and his grass root support, the result was disastrous.
The rally had five large cut-outs -three of Somen Mitra and two of Kesri. One imaginative addition was the model of the Concord aircraft which had flown in a much hyped British trade delegation two years ago to Calcutta. This aircraft on the Brigade Parade ground was numbered Concord 420 to add some black humour.
Mitra, of course, announced a three-point programme to fight the misrule of the Left Front Government. This would begin on March 17 by `gheraoing all Panchayat offices in the state and demanding proper accounts of their expenditure.
The next programme will be on April 9 with a jail-bharo agitation protesting against price rise and crime against women. The party will organise various programmes at sub-division level till September.
There couldnt be a more vague plan of action to embarass and uproot a government that is ruling the state for 19 years, murmured some of the disappointed listeners at the gathering.
