Kolkata, Feb 25: Asserting that the Leftist forces are the “true third alternative” in West Bengal, CPI(M) leader Prakash Karat on Tuesday said that the party will fight both the Trinamool Congress and the BJP tooth and nail.
He said that neither the BJP can be an alternative to the TMC, nor can the latter be an alternative to the saffron party in West Bengal.
“The Leftists are the true third alternative in the state,” Karat said, addressing a public meeting at Dankuni in Hooghly district on the completion of a four-day West Bengal state conference of the CPI(M).
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Karat, who is the coordinator of CPI(M)’s central committee, claimed that the RSS has plans to make West Bengal a hub for “Hindu fanaticism” in eastern India.
Stating that RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat recently made a 10-day visit to West Bengal, the CPI(M) leader said, “He had come to chalk out a strategy to strengthen the RSS in the state.”
Karat said that the CPI(M) has decided in its just-concluded state conference that any act that will create differences among people in West Bengal will be defeated by the Marxists.
“We have decided to fight against both the TMC and the BJP-RSS tooth and nail,” he said.
“No communal force, either Hindu or Muslim, were given any chance to gain ground in West Bengal during the Marxist rule in the state,” he said.
The CPI(M), which led the Left Front in West Bengal to run the state for 34 years till 2011, could not win any seat in the 2021 assembly elections in the state.
It could not win any seat out of 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state in 2019 and 2024 parliamentary polls.
The ruling Trinamool Congress and the opposition BJP have cornered almost all seats in the state assembly and the Lok Sabha from West Bengal.
Karat claimed that CPI(M) workers have faced atrocities at the hands of the ruling TMC in West Bengal, but have taken up such challenges bravely.
He claimed that false criminal cases have been lodged against party workers but despite that, “the CPI(M) has been fighting against both communal forces and corruption and goonda raj in the state.”
Karat alleged that the rural populace of West Bengal has been deprived of the benefits of MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act).
He alleged that the TMC government in the state has misused the job guarantee scheme and the BJP-led dispensation at the Centre has stopped the benefits owing to this.
Maintaining that the rural people of West Bengal are losing the benefits owing to such a political tug-of-war, Karat said that the CPI(M) demands that the job guarantee scheme be extended to the people of the state.
He further alleged that the security of women in the state was at stake, claiming that the TMC’s way of running the government was responsible for this.
“We cannot accept such atrocities on women in the state and the Marxist party will stand in the front to oppose such activities,” he said.
He claimed that the general public in the state are becoming a “victim of goonda raj”. (PTI)
