Bhattacharjee and Sen: Offence is the best defence?

Calcutta, July 1: More or less resigned to Mulayam Singh Yadav backing the Centre, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Biman Bose and Nirupam Sen today tried to boost the morale of Left MLAs, asking them to shrug off their “defeatist mentality” in the wake of the rural poll setbacks.

They also exhorted the allies to bury the differences and defend the government with “courage and conviction”.

Referring to the “fast changing national political scenario”, the CPM leaders also set the tune of the campaign for the Lok Sabha polls. The legislators were told to focus on inflation, Centre-state relations and the nuclear deal in the Assembly, whose budget session resumed today.

“If Mulayam bails out the UPA government and the Congress after we withdraw support, the Congress and the Trinamul Congress will come closer in Bengal. We have to take care of that scenario,” industries minister Sen told party MLAs at the state CPM headquarters this evening.

He asked them to come out of a “loser’s mindset”. “Trinamul has become aggressive after winning the two zilla parishads. But we must realise that our overall result was good despite some defeats. Our MLAs must counter the Opposition in the House boldly and support the government — from industrialisation to health and education.”

Addressing the MLAs at a closed-door meeting earlier, the chief minister said: “Don’t lose heart by what the Opposition and the media have said. We have lost more panchayats, but our vote share has gone up to 53 per cent from 49 (in the 2006 Assembly polls). Defend the government with courage and conviction.”

The rise in votes, Bose, the state party secretary and front chief, said was “no mean achievement after 31 years of Left rule”.

State poll panel secretary S.N. Roychoudhury said the panel was yet to tabulate the final results of the polls held in May and that it did not have the voting percentages.

CPM sources said the claim of 53 per cent vote share was primarily based on what “grassroots functionaries” had calculated from the zilla parishad and panchayat samiti seats that the front had won.

The MLAs said all three skirted controversial issues like land acquisition for industrialisation.