Pretensions, like old habits, die hard. Even after nearly thirty years in power, the leftists in Bengal cannot do without a pretence of militancy and street power. This really is at the heart of the leftist road show in Calcutta in protest against the death sentence on Saddam Hussein and of the threat of union power hanging over the information technology sector. That the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) still disrupts public life in such an irresponsible manner betrays its confusion about politics and governance. In strictly legal terms, such blatant disregard of the norms of public conduct may well be considered an offence. That the offender is the party that governs the state makes it also a shame. This is not to deny a political party its right to agitate on any issue, even if it is a purely partisan show. The question is whether any party, let alone a ruling one, should be allowed to hold public life to ransom. The same argument applies to the decision by the Centre of Indian Trade Unions to form a union in the IT sector. Whether the Citu forces a closure of the IT offices on December 14, when it has called a nationwide general strike, is not the issue. The attempt to introduce trade unions in the IT sector suggests that the old pretensions still cloud the left’s thinking.

Obviously, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee cannot afford to have these old pretensions. In fact, he knows how important it is to shed them in order to change the image of Bengal. The disruptions in Calcutta on Thursday will not help the chief minister’s efforts. He clearly has a long way to go to reform his party, which thinks nothing of spreading chaos on the city’s streets on a weekday. There are enough indications though that he has been fighting the old guard in the party, especially the unreformed section in the Citu. And the just-concluded meeting of the CPI(M) politburo seems to signal a victory for Mr Bhattacharjee’s realistic line over the Citu’s militant posturings. He appears to have got the support of Mr Jyoti Basu and Mr Shyamal Chakraborty, secretary of the Citu’s Bengal unit, on his opposition to strikes and other militant trade union activities in the IT sector in Bengal. These are still early days for Bengal’s economic recovery. It cannot do the chief minister’s — and Bengal’s — image any good if Calcutta continues to be seen as a city of strikes and processions.