BJP TODAY

May 16--31, 2003 - Vol. 12, No. 10

Advaniji expresses displeasure to Buddhadeb for attack on Tapan
By Our Special Correspondent

Outraged by the attack on a Central Minister in West Bengal by CPI-M goons, Deputy Prime Minister Lalji Advani called up the West Bengal Chief Minister Biddhadev Bhattacharya on May 6, to express his "displeasure" at this incident.

Shri Advani told the West Bengal Chief Minister that violence had to be stopped if the Panchayat elections were to be free and fair. There was no reason why incidents like that involving the Union Minister of State for Small Scale Industries Tapan Sikdar took place on May 4, he told Shri Bhattacharya reminding him that the attackers were his partymen and such incidents had taken place earlier too.

Meanwhile, the jittery CPI-M has received flaks from none other than Shri Jyoti Basu, who was the Chief Minister of the State for more than two decades, when he recently rebuked his party leaders saying that their constrol on cadres was slackening in view of incidents of violence involving these workers.

Also, Shri Bhattacharya himself was humiliated by Left Front partners, the Revolutionary Socialist Party and the Forward Bloc in Murshidabad when they refused to join a CPI-M election rally. Both these parties have put up a very large number of candidates against the CPI-M.