Mamata Banerjee: Jyoti Basu & Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee were not like the CPI(M) of today

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday made a reference to two former chief ministers of the Left Front government – whose 34 years of rule she had ended in 2011 – in an unusual context. In an attack on the Communist Party of India (Marxist), she said that former chief ministers Jyoti Basu and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee were not like “the CPI(M) of today”. She referred to the current CPI(M) as “shameless”, who had helped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) gain ground in West Bengal.

Banerjee has often mentioned that the Left votes were going to the BJP in Bengal, since 2013, and that the CPI(M) cadres were helping the BJP in the state. Ahead of the Assembly elections of 2021, Banerjee reiterated it on Tuesday.

Speaking at a press conference at the state administrative headquarters Nabanna after the cabinet meeting, Banerjee said that the honest Left supporters do not know this CPI(M), and said the CPI(M) of today is “shameless” and the kind that Jyoti-babu and Buddha-babu were never like.

She alleged that while the BJP has been swindling money, the CPI(M) does not seek transparency from them. “How much money has gone to PM-CARES fund and how much money has been spent? The CPI(M) is not interested in it,” she said. Banerjee added that the CPI(M) has contributed to the growth of the BJP in Bengal, and the party goons had just changed camps and created an atmosphere of terror in the state. In the last Lok Sabha polls, the CPI(M) share of votes came down to less than 10 per cent, and the BJP is now the main Opposition party in Bengal. Many feel, and the Trinamool Congress claim, that the majority of Left votes have gone to the BJP in the state.