KOLKATA: Former West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya came down heavily on the ruling TMC and the BJP on Monday, accusing them of ruining the state and its secular credentials.
Bhattacharya, 76, said it is only the Left-Congress-ISF alliance that can bring the state out of the darkness.
Noting that "the silence of a crematorium" prevails in Singur and Nandigram, he alleged that under the present dispensation, the state has gone backwards in agriculture, while no industry was established during its 10-year-tenure.
Anti-land acquisition movements led by the Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee at Singur and Nandigram in 2007-08 had jolted the mighty Left Front government and laid the foundation of the TMC rule in West Bengal.
"The conspirators of the devious play of that period are now divided in two groups engaged in mudslinging against each other," Bhattacharya said.
Young people of Bengal have lost employment opportunities and the meritorious and skilled left for other states owing to the situation, the CPI(M) veteran said in a statement.
"Corruption, extortion and syndicate-raj have made the lives of the state's people unbearable," he said, adding, security and respect of women are endangered due to antisocial activities.
"Religious harmony, which used to be West Bengal's pride, has been poisoned," the ailing former CM claimed.
Bhattacharya said the TMC's autocratic rule on one hand and the BJP's politics of divide and religious polarisation on the other have brought the state to ruins.