In an interactive session organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce the outgoing British Deputy High Commissioner, Simon Wilson said that the condition of roads is West Bengal is ' horrible and dangerous.' Last week Ms Mamata Bannerjee, the new Railway Minister asked the central government not to provide any financial help for the victims of hurricane Aila because, according to her, the money will not reach the affected people but will end up in the pockets of CPM cadres. This from the leader of Trinamul Congress who has herself been elected from Bengal. In over thirty years that the communists have ruled Bengal they have reduced the state to one of the most backward. They have successfully created a culture of sloth and hostility to private enterprise. Companies have left the state and when Tata wanted to set up a plant to manufacture the Nano he was driven out. Young people prefer to get handouts from the Party rather than get an education and work for high wages. Whereas the Metro in Delhi builds entire sections in two to three years the same work takes over a decade in Bengal. Same with flyovers. On the twentieth anniversary of Tiannanmen Square massacre you wonder why the Chinese people do not boot out the murderers. At least they have an excuse in that they do not know anything different but Bengalees travel all over India. Do they not see how the rest of the country is bounding ahead? Yet they keep voting for the commies. Maybe the electronic voting machines are not so foolproof after all.