Bihar has set template for Bengal, Assam elections, claims CPI-ML chief

The left leader alleged that the voters in Bihar have defeated the BJP’s conspiracy to create an opposition-free democracy by strongly supporting the GA.

National general secretary of the CPI-ML (liberation) Dipankar Bhattarcharya on Sunday said the huge support won by the grand alliance comprising the RJD, Congress and the three left parties has set the template for coming elections in West Bengal, Assam and other states where the polls would be fought on people’s agenda like unemployment, migration, agrarian crisis and opposition to labour law reforms.

CPI-ML general secretary Deepankar Bhattacharya says Bihar elections have given opposition the confidence to raise people’s issues in the upcoming polls. (HT Photo)

Bhattacharya, while addressing a press conference on Sunday, said the GA would continue to raise the people’s issues inside the state assembly and outside to register its opposition to the BJP–JD(U) led NDA government and emphasised it was a wrong propaganda being spread by the BJP that there was resentment against the chief minister Nitish Kumar, who was facing anti-incumbency.

“The BJP has been an equal stakeholder in power in the NDA government for over a decade and people have put the BJP on the dock as well. If the issue of employment was a poll agenda, the privatisation of railways was also an election issue,” he said.

To buttress his point, Bhattarcharya said the poll results of 2020 should not be compared with 2015 and instead compared with 2010 results when the NDA had got a big majority in Bihar even though the UPA was in power at the centre and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah were not around in national politics.

“This time, the NDA has managed to form the government with a thin majority. It is clear, there is widespread resentment against both the JD(U) and the BJP among people,” he said. Bhattacharya, whose party won 12 seats in the recently concluded elections, said people of Bihar had shown their resistance against the conspiracy of BJP to have an opposition-free democracy by strongly supporting the GA.

“On November 26, the CPI-ML would extend its support to the joint call by trade unions across the country for a strike against the reform in labour laws,” he said.

Besides, CPI-ML state secretary Kunal and senior leader Kavita Krishnan too said the party would discharge its responsibility as a strong opposition in the state assembly and outside in coming days and raise issues of employment, migration and poverty in the state. Krishnan also said that the theory being spread by the NDA that women voters gave their support to the NDA overwhelmingly in this state polls was a false propaganda.