04-17-2006, 12:48 PM
<!--emo&:cool--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/specool.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='specool.gif' /><!--endemo--> CPM rides on capitalism to seek seventh term in WB
Source: IANS. Image Source: AFP
Kolkata, April 17 : West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya is bending communism like a Beckham and propagating the virtues of capitalism as he seeks a mind-boggling seventh five-year term for the Left Front.
A homegrown Deng Xiao Ping, Bhattacharya has unleashed a virtual revolution in the Marxist citadel over which he presides, seemingly having given up the verses of revolutionary Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky that he has always relished.
A lover of avant-garde movies, a poet, a playwright and a translator of Mayakovsky and Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Bengali, the 62-year-old leader is neither reciting revolutionary poems nor chanting Marxism at election rallies.
What he speaks about is plain labour-friendly capitalism, a litany of apologies for what he failed to do on healthcare and education and promises of a better deal for the people.
"What we are practising here is capitalism. Socialism cannot be created in the given situation though we preach it. We are trying to make capitalism as labour-friendly as possible," the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader said without fumbling ahead of state assembly elections in West Bengal that started Monday.
"I want investment, so it is important to befriend industrialists. We need industrialisation and we have to keep good relations with industrialists, the inherent contradictions between capital and labour notwithstanding."
Bhattacharya, who enjoys respect for austere living and whose wife works in a library, is clearly making waves - and also causing eyebrows to raise among the puritan Marxists.
When there were protests against his decision to provide farmlands to an Indonesian business group, he told farmers to give up farming and graduate into industry.
No wonder big business is all for him. Said industrialist Sanjeev Goenka, vice chairman of RPG Group: "Buddhadev is absolutely clean and unbelievably honest."
IT sector's Indu Khattar added: "He is a chief minister who is accessible to us. He is there for us and we have full faith in his government."
Continued... Click Here >>
Source: IANS. Image Source: AFP
Kolkata, April 17 : West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya is bending communism like a Beckham and propagating the virtues of capitalism as he seeks a mind-boggling seventh five-year term for the Left Front.
A homegrown Deng Xiao Ping, Bhattacharya has unleashed a virtual revolution in the Marxist citadel over which he presides, seemingly having given up the verses of revolutionary Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky that he has always relished.
A lover of avant-garde movies, a poet, a playwright and a translator of Mayakovsky and Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Bengali, the 62-year-old leader is neither reciting revolutionary poems nor chanting Marxism at election rallies.
What he speaks about is plain labour-friendly capitalism, a litany of apologies for what he failed to do on healthcare and education and promises of a better deal for the people.
"What we are practising here is capitalism. Socialism cannot be created in the given situation though we preach it. We are trying to make capitalism as labour-friendly as possible," the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader said without fumbling ahead of state assembly elections in West Bengal that started Monday.
"I want investment, so it is important to befriend industrialists. We need industrialisation and we have to keep good relations with industrialists, the inherent contradictions between capital and labour notwithstanding."
Bhattacharya, who enjoys respect for austere living and whose wife works in a library, is clearly making waves - and also causing eyebrows to raise among the puritan Marxists.
When there were protests against his decision to provide farmlands to an Indonesian business group, he told farmers to give up farming and graduate into industry.
No wonder big business is all for him. Said industrialist Sanjeev Goenka, vice chairman of RPG Group: "Buddhadev is absolutely clean and unbelievably honest."
IT sector's Indu Khattar added: "He is a chief minister who is accessible to us. He is there for us and we have full faith in his government."
Continued... Click Here >>