The Socialist Unity Centre of India-Communist (SUCI-C) on Saturday organised a mega rally at Kolkata’s iconic Brigade Parade Grounds, where the party leadership questioned the credibility of the INDIA (Indian National Developmental, and Inclusive Alliance) grouping, and targeted both the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the parties in the Left Front.
The SUCI(C) had organised its gathering at the Brigade Parade Grounds after a gap of 35 years and thousands of party supporters, not only from West Bengal but from 25 other States, participated in the event. The rally was organised to mark the birth centenary of Marxist thinker and founder of the SUCI(C), Shibdas Ghosh.
SUCI(C) general secretary Provash Ghosh and president K. Radhakrishna were among those who addressed the gathering. The SUCI(C) leadership, which was never a part of the CPI(M)-led Left Front, took a swipe at the dwindling political influence of Left parties in West Bengal.
“From 1977, the CPI(M)-led Left Front was in power for 34 years. Today, what is their strength on the ground? For electoral gains, they have joined forces with the Congress and made a pir (religious leader) secular. At the national level, you have seen they have formed INDIA, where the Trinamool Congress, which they are fighting, is also there. This is what the CPI(M) has been reduced to,” Mr. Ghosh said.
The SUCI(C) general secretary pointed out that even Left Front allies like the Revolutionary Socialist Party and the All India Forward Bloc have been weakened.
During the 2011 Assembly polls in West Bengal, the SUCI(C) had allied with the Trinamool Congress. The party leadership, however, had not joined the TMC government and was critical of it on several issues. However, from 2014 to 2019, the party supported the Left Front and organised joint protests .
The party leadership from the rally called for a broader unity of Left forces, but added that there could be no double standards on their unity by having an alliance with the Congress party and the TMC.
Mr. Ghosh targeted the TMC government over the violence in the recently concluded rural polls, and added that “democracy and its values have been diminished”. He said that the Trinamool’s stress on “dole politics” was to deflect attention from the failures of its government.
SUCI(C) president, K. Radhakrishna, who presided over the event, paid tributes to the party’s founder, Shibdas Ghosh, describing him as an “uncompromising freedom fighter” who understood that even though the country became independent in 1947, the real emancipation of people was not achieved. Mr. Radhakrishna said that Shibdas Ghosh founded SUCI(C) as a “genuine Marxist party” to achieve these goals.
The SUCI(C)‘s rally has become a subject of discourse in the State’s political circles as no political party has held a gathering at the massive Brigade Parade Grounds in the heart of the city after the 2021 Assembly polls.
The CPI(M) leadership brushed aside the SUCI(C)‘s criticism whereas a TMC spokesperson welcomed the exercise of holding a meeting at Brigade Parade Grounds.
The SUCI(C) was founded in 1948, and has been part of two United Front governments in West Bengal in the mid-60s. The party has no representation in the Parliament or in the West Bengal Assembly.
