CALCUTTA, June 3: The recent killing of four Revolutionary Socialist Party workers in Basanti was to have topped the agenda of the Left Front meeting held here today. However, the discussion all but skipped the issue, with even the RSP leaders deciding to play down the consequences of "CPM-sponsored terrorism".Interestingly, the meeting was supposed to have taken off on a stormy note. After all, just yesterday, Home Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharaya, PWD Minister Khiti Goswami and an important RSP leader were busy trading charges about the killings, that too in the presence of Chief Minister Jyoti Basu.
But at today's discussion, leaders appeared to be more worried about how to prevent the Opposition from getting any political mileage out of the issue. And with the Chief Minister, who presided over the meeting, assuring the RSP that he would personally look into the investigations, party leaders also did not kick up a ruckus.
When finally Revolutionary Communist Party of India leader BimalanandaMukherjee raised the issue during the meeting, he was told that "this requires no mention as Jyoti Basu has already promised justice."
Small wonder then that the meet concentrated instead on the issue of dummy candidates. It was decided that these candidates -- who won the elections despite the Left Front asking them to withdraw from the race -- would not be given any portfolios. Already, 147 such candidates have been blacklisted and the figure is likely to go up.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
