Cut out black money, Buddha tells Tollywood

KOLKATA: It was a gathering of the bygone, a meeting in sepia colour. All the grey hairs - writers, thespians, poets who once dominated Bengal's cultural scene - Chitra Sen, Arun Mukherjee, Usha Ganguly, Asoke Mukhopadhyay, Tarun Majumdar, Gouri Ghosh, Wasim Kapoor, Debes Ray, Usha Ganguly, Ajijul Haque - assembled at a city auditorium on Saturday to listen to former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee when there were a handful from the next generation present in the meeting.
Bhattacharjee told them what they already knew. They didn't get a chance to speak. It all turned out to be a lacklustre Left sympathisers' meet where there was no room for interaction. Actor Badsa Maitra and film director Raja Mitra stood out among the veterans.
Soumitra Chattopadhyay couldn't make it to the gathering because of his preoccupation. Veteran thespian Shobha Sen, singer Amar Pal, actor Biplab Chatterjee sent messages like film director Buddhadeb Dasgupta, dancer Amita Datta and academic Sujit Basu. Organisers read out the messages perhaps to showcase names who still swear by the Left. The absence of Tollywood compared to Trinamool gathering was showing. Buddha's stinker on Tollywood may further alienate them. "I don't want to take names. But Tollywood is bending its head to black money. Some may argue that it doesn't matter from where the money comes. But it matters. A lot of chit fund money has been pumped in media and entertainment industry," Bhattacharjee said.
While organisers took refuge in Tagore - esho aparajito bani, asatya hani - to make the gathering sound different, the former chief minister tore off the facade and went straight to what he wanted to say on the coming Lok Sabha polls. "Congress and BJP taken together command less than 50% votes. It shows that the country has room for an alternative," said Bhattacharjee. Buddha's alternative doesn't project faces such as Narendra Modi or Rahul Gandhi. "Our alternative is a list of policies such as land reforms, universal rationing, universal pension of Rs 4,000 for the aged. We are opposed to disinvestment, FDI in retail," the former chief minister said. Unable to mobilize parties under a common slogan, the CPM politburo member harped on mobilizing people instead of netas.
Bhattacharjee seized the opportunity to argue Bengal's "stagnation" on all major fronts, from land to industry. "The Left Front government had planned to set up the largest steel plant in Bengal. The Jindal Steel came, set up the boundary wall. But there has been no progress after that. The project is stuck up. You all know the Singur story. The fate of Videocon in north Bengal is similar. IT giants Wipro and Infosys aren't coming. Had they come, we could have provided jobs to another 90,000 techies. We owe an answer to the younger generation," Bhattacharjee said. He also expressed concern over the plight of students who took the Teacher Eligibility Test (Tet) for jobs in government-sponsored schools.
Bhattacharjee also took a dig at the Mamata Banerjee government on the huge borrowings it has made in the last three years. "We made loans like many other states. Even the Centre makes huge borrowings. But the present government borrowed Rs 60,000 crore in the last three years. Look at the way it is spending money in utsavs, jalshas, painting the city white and blue," Bhattacharjee said.