Made mistakes, learnt lessons: Buddha

PURGE TO CONTINUE

On the rectification drive in the CPM, Bhattacharjee said, “It is a long-drawn process. We are working in the right direction. We will not compromise on this issue”.

Asked if the expulsion of minority leader Adbur Rezzak Mollah from the CPM would affect its poll prospect, the veteran leader said, “I don’t think so. It will help improve the health of the party. The communist party should be a disciplined party based on
ideology.”

TMC GOVT ‘ZERO ON ALL FRONTS’

He claimed the vote gap between the Left and the ruling Trinamool Congress in Bengal was narrowing due to the faulty policies of the Mamata Banerjee government. When reminded that the TMC had scored decisive victory in panchayat and municipal elections, he said, “What happened was not popular support. They (TMC) had created problems before and during the elections. We have decided to resist their terror tactics in the Lok Sabha polls.”

He said, the TMC government was “zero on all fronts”, be it industry, agriculture, law and order, health or education. “No road, no power station, no bridge, no hospital. Nothing is happening. Only there are stone-laying ceremonies. It is
ridiculous.”

Raising the issue of atrocities on women, he said, “No woman in Bengal is secure and safe. During our tenure too there were crimes against women. But during our tenure we had made sure that law takes its own course and the criminals are punished. Now the anti-socials are taking over.”

The CPM leader also pitching for industrialisation saying no single investment came to state in the last three years. “You know what happened in Singur. Jindals have left. After Wipro came, Infosys had said that it would come and together about 90,000 job opportunities would have been created. But nothing is happening now,” he said.

‘WAS SURE OF SOLVING SINGUR ISSUE’

On the abandoned Tata Nano project in Singur, Bhattacharjee said, “I was sure that I am going to solve that problem. I thought she (Mamata Banerjee) will give some speeches and finally the factory will open. But Ratan Tata finally decided to withdraw. He said he did not want to be an unwanted guest. Unfortunate. I came to know later that he had started dialogue with the Gujarat government long before”.

He insisted that his government had not forcibly acquired land in Singur and claimed “majority had given land on their own”. “Singur has ruined the future of Bengal. She (Mamata Banerjee) is responsible for all that happened,” he remarked.

Asked if the police firing at Nandigram had put the then Left regime on the backfoot, Bhattacharya said, “No. Singur and Nandigram were separate issues. In Nandigarm, we had not sent the police to occupy the land.”