Subhas Naskar

Calcutta, May 15: Jyoti Basu today virtually conceded that the Left Front’s unity was in tatters and asked all to “learn a lesson” but the subsequent violence at Basanti reopened the still weeping wounds.

The RSP, whose leader and irrigation minister Subhas Naskar’s house was attacked, drew a parallel with the Siddhartha Shankar Ray regime and threatened a pullout from the government but admitted this would be a difficult decision.

PWD minister and RSP leader Kshiti Goswami wants to discuss this in the party. “In view of the Basanti incidents, I can spell out my personal opinion about stepping down from the ministry. But I want my party to discuss it first,” he said in Malda.

Basu said: “Our party as well as others have to learn a lesson and avoid the rerun of this violence in the third phase of the polls.”

He said “elections need to be peaceful, otherwise there is no meaning in holding them. I was relieved after the first phase of the poll went off peacefully. But situation turned different in the second phase”.

Admitting that front unity had hit a new low after seat-sharing talks failed in almost all 17 districts, Basu said: “In the wake of criticism of our policies, we realised that the disunity over seat-sharing would be worse this time. Talks failed with RSP and Bloc in many places. Biman (Bose) tried his best. But it could not be achieved,’’ he said.

Hours after Basu’s words of caution, CPM supporters allegedly threw a bomb at Naskar’s ancestral house in Basanti. His nephew’s wife, Gouri Naskar, was critically injured and rushed to SSKM Hospital from South 24-Parganas.

The RSP brought out a rally in Calcutta to protest the “terror campaign of the pseudo-Left CPM”. The party’s leaders called the incident “a shame for Left politics” and threatened to “seriously” consider the option of pulling out from the government at the party’s state secretariat meeting on Monday.