The Congress national president Rahul Gandhi wants the Bengal Pradesh Congress to first stand up on its feet and then make a choice of electoral allies in the State, newly appointed PCC president Somen Mitra said a day after meeting Rahul in Delhi.
Mitra, a veteran party leader who held the same post in 1998 when then State Youth Congress chief and present Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee left the party following differences with him to form a new Trinamool Congress in 1998.
Rahul, who is likely to visit Kolkata during Durga Pujas, is known to have told Mitra and the newly appointed State committee that no alliance would be imposed on the PCC leadership.
“Rahulji has asked the State leaders to take all steps to strengthen the organisation. He realizes that these are hard times for the party and it needs to stand up on its feet first before the issue of alliance is taken up,” Mitra said, adding “he has assured us that no alliance will be imposed on the party and that the State leadership will be heard before any decision is taken.”
Gandhi is known to have told the State leaders that if need be the Congress would go it alone. “These are hard times. We are faced by two hostile parties on two sides: the BJP and the Trinamool Congress.
“We will have to navigate the party accordingly,” Mitra said without referring to the Left parties particularly the CPI(M).
The CPI(M) had reportedly decided in a State committee meeting to ally with the Congress Party in the coming 2019 general elections. The two parties had jointly contested the 2016 State polls.
“The decision of any alliance has been left on the State leadership but before that we have to tone up the organisation and make it stand on its feet with dignity,” Mitra said. Another leader and Malda MP AH Khan Chowdhury is known to have told Gandhi that the Congress should go to polls alone and must not bow down to any party in an undignified manner.
“Our dignity is at stake and we must not further lose it by allying with parties on their terms,” Khan Chowdhury is known to have told Gandhi who is likely to visit the College Square Durga Puja organized by senior State leader Pradip Ghosh.
Gandhi has also told the leaders during the meeting attended amongst others by Mitra, Pradip Bhattacharya, Deepa Dasmunshi, Chowdhury, AH Khan Chowdhury to build opinion about the Rafale deal.
Booklets on the issue would be distributed among the workers and the people on the Rafale deal both in Bengali and other languages, the leaders said. They added it would also be publicised in social media.
Meanwhile party spokesperson Priyanka Chowdhury said the Congress would forge alliance with like-minded parties only in the next year’s general elections adding however the Congress would never compromiseon the question of ideology while forming alliances.
"We are not compelled to compromise on our ideology and values just for the sake of stitching up alliances.
“We will be reaching out to all political opposition parties and alliance will be formed on the basis of our and their understanding of the situation," said Chaturvedi, a national spokesperson of the party.
Asked as to whether her party would forge alliance with the Trinamool Congress too which was charged with “literally wiping out the Congress in Bengal” by the likes of Adhir Chowdhury, she said the Congress would ally with all the Opposition parties without sacrificing its own ideology and dignity.