Mamata Banerjee is a curse on West Bengal

The hypocrisy of Communists (CPI-M) is legendary. They have one set of policies for the ‘Central Government’, led by Prakash Karat and exactly the opposite when it comes to CPI (M) governed state of West Bengal. Mamata Banerjee has beaten the likes of Prakash Karat by a huge margin. Her self-centered ambition is like the HIV/AIDS virus. She would have the distinction of depriving millions of poor and unemployed people of West Bengal of a good and decent manufacturing Job. Her single-minded goal is to be the next Chief Minister of West Bengal. To achieve that ambition she would continue to launch one agitation after another. In the bargain if few people are killed, like in Nandigram, so be it. If Tata Motors pull out of Singur and 10,000 jobs are lost, so be it! No price is big enough for her to be the Chief Minister. The lives of poor farmers and low-wage workers are just collateral damage in her long political fight. In what respect is she different than say Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Raj Thackeray, Praveen Togadia or Prakash Karat? They are all traitors in our great Indian democracy.

Mamata Banerjee was born in Kolkata, West Bengal, on January 5, 1955. She is an LLB (graduate of Law) from Calcutta University. She joined Congress (I) in 1970s and started her political carrier. Mamata Banerjee defeated the Communist stalwart Somnath Chatterjee from Jadavpur constituency in West Bengal in 1984. She became the youngest parliamentarian in India and took over as General Secretary of All India Youth Congress. She lost her seat briefly in 1989 but was back in 1991 from Kolkata South. She has retained that seat since then. In 1991, she was inducted in the cabinet of P. V. Narasimha Rao government as a Minister of State for Human Resources Development, Youth Affairs and Sports, and Women and Child Development. She was eased out of her portfolios in 1993. Since then she has been the rabble-rousing politician from West Bengal. In April 1996, she alleged that Congress was behaving as a stooge of the CPI-M in West Bengal. Since then her theatrics are well known throughout the ‘Indian Political World’. She would stop at nothing!

The legacy and stature of Somnath Chatterjee…

The current Speaker of the 14th Lok Sabha, Somnath Chatterjee, has made history for his country and in a strange way, for his party. Chatterjee, a veteran of the Communist party of India-Marxist since 1968, placed his duty towards his country before his party’s ‘Fatwa’. He refused to resign his position as Speaker of the House before the no-confidence vote on July 22, 2008, against the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) led government. This might be the first time in the history of free India that a communist chose his country before his party. Somnath Chatterjee has not only earned the gratitude of the people of India but he has made a contribution to the ranks of communists in India. I wonder if Prakash Karat and his wife Brinda Karat have the brains to understand that their personal ego has destroyed their party and whatever little support they enjoyed in some parts of India.

Somnath Chatterjee was born in Tezpur, Assam on July 25, 1929. He will be 79 years old tomorrow. He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1971 as an independent, supported by the CPI (M). Somnath is the son of Nirmal Chandra Chatterjee, the former president of the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha, a forerunner of today’s BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party). Nirmal Chatterjee left Hindu Mahasabha to join the politics of the left parties. Somnath Chatterjee followed in his father’s footsteps and joined active politics in 1968. He became a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) that year. This veteran communist leader was expelled from the party on July 23, 2008 after 40 years of loyal and dedicated leadership. Somnath Chatterjee was unanimously elected Speaker of 14th Lok Sabha on June 4, 2004. This was the first time in Indian Parliament’s history that a Left Party member became the Speaker of the Lok Sabha. Chatterjee received a standing ovation.

Prakash Karat is a traitor…

Prakash Karat, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), is a traitor. He has been lying to the people of India that his opposition to the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal is based on principle. The principle being that the ‘Hyde Act’ or the so called 123 agreement is not in the national interest. There are many people in India and all over the world who have been quite skeptical about this deal from the beginning. But their apprehensions are based on their bitter experience with the United States and Europe, after the 1974 nuclear tests by India and the Western sanctions imposed on India thereafter. None of us have been predisposed towards opposing anything American. Prakash Karat pretends to be concerned about our national interests. The fact of the matter is that his opposition to the Indo-US nuclear deal is because of his pathological hatred for the United States. Karat is the kind of a demagogue that would deny food aid to millions of people dying of hunger, if the aid happens to be coming from America. Do you think Karat is a nationalist?

Prakash Karat was born in Rangoon, Burma on February 7, 1948. His father worked with the British Railways. The Karats are Nairs from Elappully, Kerala. Prakash Karat lost his father while still in school and moved to Madras with his mother Radha and sister Kamala. The sister died in her teens and the mother took up a job as an LIC (Life Insurance Corporation of India) agent. Karat was educated at the Madras Christian College as an undergraduate student of Economics. He graduated with a gold medal and won a scholarship to Britain’s University of Edinburgh, for a Masters’ degree in politics. It was at Edinburgh that he met with Professor Victor Kiernan, the famed Marxist and became a strident communist. His political activism began with anti-apartheid protests at the University. Karat returned to India in 1970 and joined the Communist Party of India (Marxist). He became an aide to the party leader A K Gopalan, the legendary communist leader from Kerala. Prakash Karat was elected to the Central Committee of the CPI (M) in 1985 and became a member of the ‘Politburo’ in 1992. He took over as the youngest-ever General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in 2005 at Talkatora Stadium in Delhi.