KOLKATA: At a time when Anna Hazare is being hailed across the country as an anti-corruption crusader, the Forward Bloc, a member of the ruling Left Front in West Bengal, says his movement is backed by a "vested political game plan".
"Corruption is a serious issue. All the Left parties are also very much concerned about it. But the way Anna Hazare projected the thing, there must be a political game plan and political manipulation. I have serious doubts about his movement," Forward Bloc national general secretary Debabrata Biswas told IANS in an interview.
The 73-year-old Hazare's 97-hour hunger strike in New Delhi in April forced the union government to name a joint panel that included five ministers and five members of the civil society tp draft a stringent Lokpal Bill.
Asked to react on the recent corruption allegations against the Lokpal Bill drafting committee co-chairman, Shanti Bhushan, Biswas said: "There is a political game plan behind this whole movement." But he would not elaborate.
With the results of the assembly elections to be announced Friday, the Left leader sounded hopeful about prospects despite the series of electoral debacles the Left front faced over the last two years.
Biswas said: "We have learnt from our mistakes and we have rectified them. So people now realise they cannot punish the Left Front for a few mistakes committed by a handful of people."
Forward Bloc is an important constituent of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) led front which is facing a tough challenge against a determined charge of the opposition Trinamool Congress-Congress combine.
Referring to the "mistakes" committed by the Left Front in its three-decade old rule, Biswas pointed out that contradictions between leftism and Left Front is the root cause of the problems the combine is currently facing.
"In the last 34 years some faults in administration, deviations and opportunism of a section of left activists have led to a contradiction between leftism and Left Front. That is why we have not been able to get the total support of the working class," said Biswas.
Biswas was one of the architects of the decision to withdraw the support from outside provided by the Left parties to the Manmohan Singh government over the India-US nuclear deal in 2008.
Asked whether he regretted the decision as it paved the way for the Trinamool Congress-Congress alliance, Biswas said: "It's true that we failed to make the people understand our decision. But I stand by our decision.
"Withdrawing support was necessary as we cannot be a party to surrendering India's sovereignty and independent foreign policy to US."
"We faced debacle not for the central policy of the left but for the state related issues," said the leader.
Biswas also asserted that the Left Front will remain united whatever be the results of the assembly elections as it is a product of the struggle of the toiling masses.
"The best thing about Left Front in Bengal is that it in itself is a ruling front and an opposition party. It was the allies of Left Front who have opposed various decisions of the front and the government and later those decisions were either amended or taken back.
"Whatever the results, the Left Front will remain united," Biswas said.
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