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Pro-poor Third Front only alternative: Buddhadeb

Staff Reporter

For us policy first, Prime Minister later, says Buddhadeb

— Photo: PTI/ Swapan Mahapatra

Sharing a lighter moment: West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee with magician P.C. Sorcar (Junior) at an election rally in Kolkata on Sunday.

KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has asked people to vote for the Third Front as it was the only alternative committed to pro-poor policies unlike the Congress and the BJP.

Addressing a rally here on Sunday in support of CPI(M) candidate Rabin Deb for the Kolkata Dakshin constituency, Mr. Bhattacharjee said: “We want a government that will work for the poor, farmers, working class and lower middle class sections … Only we can do it, neither the Congress nor the BJP.”

Senior CPI(M) leaders Biman Bose and Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, along with actors, musicians and sportspersons, participated in a three-km long procession before the rally.

Though Mr. Bhattacharjee was scheduled to join the procession, due to security reasons he arrived directly at the rally venue.

The Chief Minister said: “The Congress has nothing left to offer to the people, and the BJP is dangerous. As for the Trinamool Congress, it is difficult to understand if it is fighting the Lok Sabha election or an Assembly election.”

On the criticism by Congress and BJP leaders that the Third Front did not have a prime ministerial candidate, Mr. Bhattacharjee said its stand was “policy first, Prime Minister later.” The front had many capable leaders for the top job.

Strict message

Criticising the Congress for not being able to solve the “long-drawn” Babri Masjid-Ram Mandir issue, Mr. Bhattacharjee said that if the Third Front came to power, it would send out a strict message to “groups like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bajrang Dal to restrain their communal activities.”

On the Singur issue, Mr. Bhattacharjee said: “It did not matter to me whether it was the Tata or the Birla manufacturing the car or whether it was priced at Rs. 1 lakh or Rs. 5 lakh. All that I had dreamt of was the opportunity of employment generation for the youth but the Opposition parties shattered it.”

He expressed the hope that the people of the State would turn the “no, no, no-politics introduced by the Trinamool” into a “yes, yes, yes-politics” through their votes.

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