WEST BENGAL-So Long as the Factions Fight

BELYING all gloomy forecasts, the emergency meeting of the Congress Legislature Party on August 11 passed off smoothly, with the Chief Minister's hour-long monologue on the critical food situation as the only business of the session, To the waiting pressmen, Siddhartha Sankar Ray casually conveyed the news that Lakshmi Kanta Basil, Secretary of the CLP and top leader of what may be called the dissident youth faction, had withdrawn his resignation from the secretaryship. While all this seemingly testifies to the normal health of the ruling party in West Bengal, in fact, the Congress in this state has entered a phase of severe crisis. Some of the factors behind the crisis may be briefly enumerated.