Kolkata, Jan 3 (IANS) Hitting out at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Left Front Chairman Biman Bose on Wednesday said that her claim about farmers in the state was "false" as about 150 of them committed suicide in the recent past.
Banerjee had claimed farmers were the happiest in the state while addressing at the inauguration of Mati Utsav (soil festival) on Tuesday.
"About 150 farmers committed suicides in our state in the recent past but the Chief Minister claimed our farmers are staying well. She said faemers were better off. All these are false news. There have been attempts to cover up truth by false information," the veteran Communist Party of India-Marxist leader in his address at the 52nd Foundation Day of party mouthpiece 'Ganashakti Patrika'.
Bose said the role of party mouthpiece became important particularly when the "truth is being hidden".
In regards to tea industry, he said some agreements and promises, which were supposed to be implemented for welfare of workers' in the tea gardens in Bengal, were "not kept".
"We need to organise movement against this and Ganashakti has to play a crucial role in exposing the ground reality," Bose said.
CPI-M West Bengal State Secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra said no force would be able to stop the news daily.
He accused the Trinamool Congress state government and the BJP led central government of presenting false information as "truth" and this "fabricated truth" could "influence" people.
He said both Trinamool and the BJP are involved in inducting "competitive communalism".
"It has been promoted that both (the parties) were competing with each other in the state. But the reality does not tell that. The RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) was allowed to conduct camps at several placed in West Bengal while the Left parties face hurdles to get permissions for rallies," he added.
