Kolkata, April 25: Already pushed to the wall in the ongoing Assembly elections, the Left Front in West Bengal is determined to shoot self goals and further its misery. A veteran CPI(M) leader’s crass and derogatory remark against Mamata Banerjee has snowballed into a major embarrassment for the ruling Left, with the leader forced to apologise and the Chief Minister announcing that the erring Member of Parliament would not any more campaign in the election.
Seven-time Member of Parliament Anil Basu on Sunday apologised for using expletives against Mamata at an election meeting after being ordered by the party leadership.
“I apologise for using such language,” Basu, a former MP, said in a written statement shortly after Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at a Meet the Press programme here dubbed his remark as unfortunate and made it known he had been asked to apologise.
Though Basu had used filthy language naming the Trinamool leader, he, however, did not name her in the apology statement and merely referred to her as the ‘Opposition party leader’.
“My careless comments about the Opposition party leader at a public meeting in Hooghly was uncalled for. This is against our party’s ethos. I have realised the reaction in public mind,” the statement signed by Basu said.
The Chief Minister Bhattacharjee tersely said, “He will not address public meetings from now on.”
Asked if any punitive action would be taken against Basu, he said, “We do not tolerate filthy language. Punishment will be given if necessary.”
Describing Basu’s use of such language as ‘unfortunate,’ Bhattacharjee said, “No one can tolerate it.”
Asking Basu to be cautious in future, Bhattacharjee had on Saturday remarked in a statement that the “use of such words is unpardonable and unbecoming of a communist leader”.
Basu, who had won the Arambagh seat seven times in a row in the past and recorded the highest margin in the State in a Lok Sabha election in 2004, had used expletives against the Trinamool Congress chief in the presence of senior local party leaders at Arambagh town in Hooghly district recently.
But the Chief Minister sought to limit the damage, remarking that the entire Left was not bad. “One person is out of his head. It has to be rectified. But at the same time, in which other party would you find such a large number of good people?” Bhattacharjee said, adding, “If we make mistakes, we can rectify them.”
At the same time, Bhattacharjee criticised the Opposition Trinamool, without naming the party, for the use of language by their leaders.
“Look at the language being used by the Opposition. They have accused my daughter of running an NGO with foreign funds. This is absolutely untrue,” he said.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Sunday said he was surprised by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s statement about the State Government’s “overall failure”.
“I am surprised at what the Prime Minister said on Saturday. I don’t know when he discovered that the State Government was not working,” Bhattacharjee said at a ‘Meet- the-Press’ programme here and observed that the Government’s performance would be only judged by the people.
The Prime Minister, he said, had never complained to him about his Government’s alleged non-performance during his meetings in Delhi.
Rather, Singh was always eager to know about the progress in land distribution, new industries in the State and the proposed investment in the State by Japan, he said.
“The Prime Minister had come to the State to campaign for the Assembly elections. He had to follow his party’s line,” Bhattacharjee said.
The Chief Minister said he was also surprised by Singh’s another comment that Muslims in West Bengal were worse off than those in Gujarat.
“I did not expect such comments from Singh. Muslims in our State live in peace and harmony,” Buddhadeb added.
——–PTI