Basu's counsel to LF

By Our Special Correspondent

KOLKATA, JUNE 21. West Bengal's ruling Left Front today stepped into the 25th year in office amid cheers from hundreds of supporters assembled from across Bengal in the city's Netaji Indoor Stadium to celebrate the event.

Addressing the crowd, Mr. Jyoti Basu, who authored the Front's victory in office over the past 24 years, reminded the Front of the greater responsibility that lay ahead. `` We have a right to rejoice at our achievement but alongside we will have to live up to the people's expectations.''

Mr. Basu said the achievements of the Front were many but that should not make it complacent. ``We have so many more to achieve. This is just the beginning of our journey.''

The 87-year-old former Chief Minister said the supporters would do well to analyse the reasons why the Front won only 199 seats in the 2001 Assembly election as against 203 in the 1996 poll.

The Front partners should try to win over the 39 per cent voters who had opted for either the Congress or the Trinamool Congress. Most of them, he said, were misled by a section of the media which had been ``resorting to canards against the Front over the past several years''. The Front, too, had failed to bring them back to its fold, he observed.

``Not all of their (the Opposition's) voters are communal or reactionary.There are good people, too. We must understand them and bring them back to our side.''

The accent of the Front government this time would be on introspection, mass contact and better governance. The Front, he said, was operating with limited powers and it should always be frank to the people about its abilities to serve them. ``We do not lie to the people. We never tell them that we are in a position to solve all their problems.'' Mr. Basu said he was glad that the people in all spheres of life had accepted his successor, Mr. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

Among those present were Mr. Ashok Ghosh, the Forward Bloc leader, Mr. Debrata Bandopadhyay from the Revolutionary Socialist Party, Mr. Manju Majumdar, the general secretary of the Communist Party of India Mr. Anil Biswas, secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)'s Bengal unit and Mr. Biman Bose, the Politburo member.

Mr. Bhattacharjee said that the 2001 Assembly poll was considered by many as a difficult one for the Leftists. But, the verdict showed that they were still the only alternative. They had opted for the Leftists as they were convinced that it was the Front alone which could provide them with a stable and progressive Government.

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