The Left dichotomy: Buddha in Bengal is firing on all cylinders for Tatas' car project but closer home Raghavulu sees red over land offer to Lokesh Motors' car project. We take a look at the party's double standards.
The visit of the
Chinese President Hu Jintao to
India seems to have helped shake the Indian Communists out of their mothballed existence. During his visit to Mumbai, the Chinese leader made a terse statement, which was more of a dictum than an advise to the leaders of the Indian Communist parties, specially the CPM: “Change your approach to business or you will be out of business.”
At Writers building in faraway Kolkata,
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee seems to have got the message. A few months ago, the West Bengal Chief Minister signed an agreement with the Tatas to set up a small car project at Singur, close to Kolkata.
Buddha would have put the project up in north
Bengal, but
YSR from AP was dangling a juicy carrot in front of Ratan Tata. With the YSR scare, the CPM honcho decided to act fast and bring the project closer home to Kolkata, at Singur.
As the Tatas nodded, Buddha smiled, but
Mamta didi was frowning. How could comrade give away land belonging to farmers on a platter to Ratan Tata, so that he could make his one-lakh rupee car?
An angry
didi promptly marched on to Singur, only to be bundled into a waiting police van and dumped into a lock up.
Subsequently, all hell broke loose in the West Bengal Assembly and Trinamul MLAs showed that they could beat their UP counterparts hollow when it comes to dismantling furniture.
Buddha saw an opportunity and converted the Assembly into a makeshift museum, by inviting people of Kolkata to have a look at the collateral damage. Trust the communists to spot a business opportunity!
Despite all the hungama, Buddha was unrelenting, stating that 997 acres of land required for the project will be acquired, and handed over to the Tatas. Mamta or no Mamta. Fast or Feast. Fair enough, we are proud that the CPM in
West Bengal stood up for what is essentially a sound business logic.
But double standards is what the Communists need to be wary of. Closer home,
comrade Raghavulu is doing just what
didi is doing in Singur. He marched along with hundreds of pensive farmers of Mahabubnagar district, declaring that the Andhra Pradesh government cannot acquire land from farmers for the proposed car project of
BVR Subbu and Lokeswara Rao. Did we hear you right comrade? Land for car project cannot be taken from farmers in Andhra Pradesh, while it is okay in
West Bengal. Come on, Mr Raghavulu, we are not fools.
Communist leaders are generally a good lot, despite their head-in-the-sand attitude. They seem to have been caught in a time warp. For them, Leonid Brezhnev is still ruling
USSR and the Castro is still ready to slam his missiles into the US of A.
But the world has changed, and someone needs to tell the Communist friends in our State about that. Sadly, our AP comrades don’t seem to understand business as much as Buddhadeb does.
That’s the tragedy of a party that talks left and then goes right!
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PS : Rumours abound that vested car companies who are likely to be hit hard by the one lakh rupee car of the Tatas are behind the agitation at Singur. It does make sense, say those in the automobile business. What's your view? Write at apmedia@rediffmail.com
4 comments:
Typical of Communists. They talk about poor, slander USA day in and out but finally send their children for higher education there. Look at the assets of Pinarayi Vijayan, the CPM party chief in Kerala. He is worth crores, and embroiled in one controversy after another.
Senior party leaders of the CPM have admitted that they took lakhs of rupees from a bootlegger, Maniachhan to enable him to run his business without any interference from the excise and police. Two of them even built palatial houses with that money.
This man's illicit liqour killed more than 50 people in one single day in what was Kerala’s worst liquor tragedy.
But the CPM party leaders absolved their own men saying that since the money was taken for the party funds it is ok, even if it’s from a bootlegger.
Then why do you have double standards and file cases against after Bangaru Lakshman. He too can say that he took money for the party. Mr Karat, do you have an answer?
Our priorities are clear.
Industrialization is absolutely needed to produce jobs. But it should not be at the cost of small farmers, who may be left with no means of livelihood after government acquires their land. So we must use whatever land available efficiently and we should carefully avoid cases like allocating state resources (sports complexes and huge tracts of land) to companies like IMG Bharata. If at all, it is compulsory to aquire agricultural land, we should provide good compensation to the farmers. Just for the sake of providing jobs to some people, we can not take away the means of livelihood from others.
A nice terse article.
One tends to get the feeling that 'opposition' parties in the World's biggest democracy have lost their charm and competence.
Instead of trying to out-do competition through development in times of their reckoning, they work that much harder while out-of-power and more often than not manage to sabotage projects.
They might ask where's the motivation when you've achieved your 1pt. goal ie. 'To grab power'.
good one
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