Press Statement issued by Shri L.K. Advani

Leader of the Opposition (Lok Sabha)
At a press meet in Kolkata on April 23, 2006

Two phases of the election to the West Bengal Assembly are over. I wish to warmly compliment the Election Commission for the tough measures it has taken, for the first time in 30 years, to check the electoral malpractices of the CPI(M).

Now that the people of West Bengal have a chance to cast their votes in a relatively freer and fairer elections, I urge them to use this opportunity to effect a decisive political change in the state.

The Congress party has betrayed the people's desire for a change by openly helping the CPI(M) in the elections. In the past, the Congress used to indulge in covert "match-fixing" in favour of the CPI(M). This time, however, the Congress has altogether surrendered the match to the CPI(M), by refusing to become a part of the grand anti-communist alliance.

This has, in fact, angered many traditional Congress voters and workers, who want the communist misrule to end. I am told that at a meeting in New Delhi a few months ago, a prominent leader of the Congress from Bengal openly accused a senior colleague of "being an agent of the CPI(M)" for sabotaging the grand anti-Left alliance – that too in the presence of the Congress high command.

The only way to beat the Congress betrayal is for Congress workers and supporters to back the Bengal people's genuine mahajot in the state – namely, the one led by the Trinamool-BJP alliance.

The experience of Bihar elections last year shows that those who are arrogant enough to think that they are invincible can indeed be defeated by a people determined to use their ballot power unitedly. I urge the people of Bengal to emulate the example of Bihar and end the nightmare of CPI(M)'s corruption and terror in the state.

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. And power in perpetuity paralyses democracy and stagnates development. The starkest example of this is the communist-ruled Bengal. The CPI(M)'s success in governing West Bengal uninterruptedly for nearly 30 years has nothing to do with its performance, just as the RJD's 15-year rule in Bihar had nothing to do with its performance. The past three decades have seen Bengal’s sharp regression in industrial and agricultural development, rampant corruption in administration, and subversion of democracy through communist terror.

I would like the people of Bengal to know about the BJP's commitment to good governance and development, and contrast it with what they have suffered under the CPI(M)'s monopoly rule in Bengal since 1977. I have come to Bengal from Chhattisgarh today. What the Left Front has not been able to do in the area of improvement of highways and rural roads in 30 years, the BJP government in Chhattisgarh has achieved in less than three years.

The CPI(M) has been in the forefront of maligning Shri Narendra Modi. But facts show that Gujarat is today Number 1 in economic growth, investments, employment generation and, most importantly, in corruption-free governance. Gujarat's GDP growth rate is 15% -- highest in the country. West Bengal's is less than half of that.