Mass influence of CPI-M in West Bengal intact: Manik Sarkar

KOZHIKODE: The mass base of CPI(M) in West Bengal is still intact despite the reverses the party suffered in the last assembly elections, Tripura Chief Minister and party polit bureau member Manik Sarkar has said.

The Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee has only scored a "temporary victory" in West Bengal as they would be "protecting only the interests of landlords and capitalists", Sarkar said speaking at a seminar to express "solidarity with Bengal", held in connection with the 20th Congress of CPI(M) here last evening.

He said the "brutal attacks" unleashed by Trinamool Congress on CPI(M) activists and sympathisers after coming to power showed their lack of confidence in the people.

"The CPI(M)-led Front in Bengal still holds more than 40 per cent of the state's vote share, though we lost the elections. Mamata is worried about this mass base of the Left," he said.

Trinamool Congress workers, "with the support of other disruptive and regressive forces", was out to systematically derail the functioning of all democratic institutions in the state. These forces had been unleashing violence in connivance with the government, Sarkar alleged.

CPI(M) polit bureau member and West Bengal state secretary Biman Basu, who also spoke, alleged the Mamata government was trying to sabotage the achievements of the three decades of Left rule in Bengal, including land reforms by which scheduled castes, tribes and minorities were most benefited.