CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat on Monday parried questions on whether veteran Marxist leaders Jyoti Basu and Harkishan Singh Surjeet would continue in the politburo, but said he favoured "an early retirement policy". "We will decide on that in this Congress," he said when he was asked the question.
"This is not acceptable to us. Why should farmers at Singur suffer for the Tatas building shopping malls on their land?" Mamata, who had a meeting with the CPI(M) veteran Jyoti Basu recently, asked.
The meeting came in the wake of a successful discussion between Marxist patriarch Jyoti Basu and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata.
Mamata, for her part, said, "I am happy that he listened to all the details from me about Nandigram and Singur. I will meet him again if he calls me after discussing the matter with the concerned people."
Taking a dig at BJP leader L K Advani's suggestion that former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee be awarded the Bharat Ratna, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad on Saturday said the government will not be a party to the ex-premier's retirement from politics.
Noting that the CPI-M will oppose UPA's policies both inside and outside the government, he said his party has not discussed the issue of withdrawing support to the Central government.
The West Bengal government has decided to postpone its ongoing industrialisation drive for three months, former Chief Minister Jyoti Basu said.
"Heads will roll and even Police Commissioner Prasun Mukherjee may not be spared," Basu said.
For the first time in the history of the Communist Party of India - Marxist, its two founding members Jyoti Basu and Harkishan Singh Surjeet will give a miss to the party's 19th All India Congress, which begins in Coimbatore on Saturday, due to health-related reasons. The 94-year-old Basu expressed his regret and inability to attend the Congress. "Their absence would be deeply felt. But both the comrades, we know, are always with us," MP Brinda Karat said.
Dr Singh's position in UPA pitiable: Advani
Basu, who attended a meeting of the party's labour wing CITU, however, stressed the need to bring peace in the area.
"We Marxists want to bring about a radical change since our goal is to achieve socialism to usher in a classless, oppression-free society. But it is not possible to achieve that end being in power in only three states," the nonagenarian former Chief Minister said at a CPI-M rally at the Brigade Parade ground in Kolkata.
Senior Communist Party of India - Marxist leader Jyoti Basu on Tuesday said that controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen can return to Kolkata if she chooses to, but the Centre will have to ensure her security. ''If she wants to return to Kolkata or elsewhere in West Bengal, she is welcome. But the Centre will have to ensure her security,'' he told reporters at his Salt Lake residence. He is the first CPI-M leader to speak in a sympathetic tone for the writer.
'Any mistake in the defense of secularism, any lapse in economic policy that affects the people, any giving in to pressure from America, we shall come out,'warns CPI-M leader Prakash Karat.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) Politburo on Thursday turned down veteran Marxist leader Jyoti Basu's proposal to quit the party's highest policy-making body because of age and ill health.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist politburo meeting, which began in Kolkata on Tuesday, did not discuss party partriach Jyoti Basu's desire to quit from the highest decision-making forum due to ill-health and age.
Details of the coordination panel, including its role, is likely to be announced in the evening.
He will seek to finalise a coordination committee between the alliance and Left parties by Sunday.
'The BJP's economic policy narrowed the employment potential. Go to any urban area, you will see closed \n\nfactories. The small sector belongs to the middle class, and their future is ruined,' says CPI-M leader Prakash \n\nKarat.
With West Bengal fast emerging as an IT destination, veteran CPI-M leader Jyoti Basu on Friday said his party was considering whether the industry should be treated as an essential service.
The Left Front government in West Bengal would try to distribute 1.53 crore Below Poverty Line cards in the state.
The former West Bengal chief minister was particularly critical of the involvement of World Bank officials in formulating policies, pointing out that it has been established that in the past the Bank had given wrong advice in crucial matters.
A meeting of top Opposition leaders on Wednesday night decided to unitedly fight the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre.
"We must chalk out a path of development which is founded on concern for the vast masses who have not received the benefits of growth which is touted in terms of percentage of the GDP," said Jyoti Basu.
'Mamata has used minorities only as her vote bank.' 'In her entire election campaign Mamata did not utter a single sentence against the RSS.'
'Manik Sarkar may have been able to hang on if he hadn't been a follower of the CPI-M's all-time hardliner Prakash Karat,' argues Amulya Ganguli.
Belying all expectations, the Trinamool Congress registreted a landslide victory in West Bengal assembly elections, overcoming the might of the Bharatiya Janata Party after a bitter campaign that had turned into a virtual duel between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
She faced off against former disciple-turned-defector Suvendu Adhikari in a very different contest. It's not land acquisition, but an ego clash that has acquired, tragically, communal overtones, explains Kanika Datta.
Congress MP Ghulam Nabi Azad during his retirement speech in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday summed up his more than four-decade-old political career in few Urdu couplets and a brief speech.
'Didi' became the real 'Dada' as she got past the post, on a wheelchair and a foot in cast, a souvenir from the Nandigram battle against former protege-turned-rival Suvendu Adhikari.
'But India needs to remember Dr Roy, the multifaceted genius who excelled as a physician and was most loved as a leader,' notes Dr Sudhir Bisht.
Then chief minister Jyoti Basu once told an industrialist that capitalists were class enemies and he should expect no sympathy.
'If the chief minister says there are areas in her home state where she cannot enter, where has she driven the state to!'
On Wednesday, Bengal's own daughter she firmly pitched herself as, was sworn in as the chief minister of the turbulent state for the third successive term amid raging fires of political violence and a rampaging pandemic.
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