In a bid to cement ties with the Congress and bolster the joint movement against the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Bengal’s Left leaders on Wednesday visited the state Congress headquarters and paid homage to Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy. Dr BC Roy was the state’s second chief minister and a Congress stalwart.
In the 1950s and early 60s, the Marxists were a bitter critic of Roy despite him being revered as the ‘architect of West Bengal’ and for his industrial, education and administrative policies between 1948 and 1962.
Roy was also a legendary doctor and every year his birth anniversary, July 1, is observed as the National Doctor’s Day. He was awarded Bharat Ratna in 1961, a year before he died. Dr Roy’s death anniversary also falls on July 1.
Also read: Mamata Banerjee remembers former Bengal CM Bidhan Chandra Roy on National Doctors’ Day
Communist Party of India (Marxist) legislator Sujan Chakraborty, Revolutionary Socialist Party state secretary Manoj Bhattacharya, Forward Bloc state secretary Naren Chatterjee and other Left leaders went to Bidhan Bhawan, the state Congress headquarters named after Roy, and placed a wreath before his statue.
“It is a fact that once we politically opposed him but there is no denying the fact that he was a legendary person,” said Chakraborty.
Incidentally his party, the CPI(M), once accused Roy of rigging elections and of being instrumental in banning the undivided Communist Party of India. “It was our leader Jyoti Basu who named Salt Lake township Bidhan Nagar. We showed respect to Roy in several ways,” he added.
“This is the new way forward. The Congress, Left parties and other like-minded forces will move as one force against the Centre’s policies and atrocities by the TMC,” said state Congress president Somen Mitra.
BJP state president Dilip Ghosh too paid his homage to Roy. “On the birthday of Bidhan Chandra Roy, the second CM of Paschim Banga, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Dr B C Roy as well as to all the doctors, frontline warriors and those who are tirelessly serving the society,” Ghosh tweeted.
