Bengal gloom on way to doom: Buddha

Painting a bleak picture of West Bengal under the Trinamool Congress rule, former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya on Sunday said a situation of desperation is prevailing in the state in which farmers are unable to sell their produce and industrialist are shying away from investing in the state.

"No new industry is coming up and those who had promised to invest in the state during the Left rule are leavingthe state. The government failed to attract a single fresh investment. IT majors Wipro and Infosys, who came here during our rule, are now thinking of leaving the state. What will happen to the state?" Bhattacharjee wondered as he addressed a rally of CITU workers at Dumurjola at Howrah.

Slamming the government of taking the state towards a industrial disaster in absence of a clear land policy, Bhattacharjee said: "Singur has now become a shashaan ghat. Had the car manufacturing factory come up there, about 5,000 to 6,000 people would have got jobs. Hooghly's profile would have been different by now if our plan to bring industry to Singur was not thwarted."

The senior CPM leader whose industrial and land policies were blamed for the Left's rout in the state, 18 months ago, did not fail to mention the current impasse at Haldia and Dubrajpur in Birbhum where the role of Trinamool ministers have come under scanner. "At Haldia, one cargo-handling agency was driven out to give way to a company run by a Trinamool Congress MP. At Dubrajpur, it was under the orders of a minister that police went to recover a machine and when they failed, they opened fire. This state is gradually moving towards industrial doomsday,'' Bhattacharjee added.

The former CM also highlighted the "farmers' misery" saying they are finding it difficult to sell their crop as the "price they are getting is uneconomical". He said at a time when salaries of ministers in the Trinamool-led government had gone up from Rs 7,000 during Left rule to Rs 27,000 now, former transport workers were not getting their legitimate pension, and many of them were committing suicides.

... contd.

ALSO READ

Won’t cave in to conspiracies, rural polls will be held on time: Mamata

Jolt to govt as high court orders 3-phase rural polls

Left leaders at PM door for CBI probe

TMC-CPM ‘chit’ chat over Tagore