The spectre of Prakash Karat continued to loom over Bengal communist party even as the left Front on Monday emphatically declared that neither would it ally with the Congress nor would it share any platform with the Tricolour party. There would however be ‘pre-poll understanding.’
The Front leadership said the parties would have pre-poll understanding and not alliance apparently giving miles of advantage and huge respite to the Trinamool Congress even before the electoral battle had started in true sense of term. The Pradesh Congress leaders would not comment on the issue.
“The left Front was not going into any kind of alliance with the Congress in Bengal. Instead the two parties would enter into a pre-poll understanding. Neither would the Front project a Chief Ministerial candidate.” CPI(M) politburo member and left Front chairman Biman Bose made these remarks while declaring a list for 116 candidates. Out of the 116 candidates 65 are new faces and 25 come from the minority community.
The remaining names would be announced in phases he maintained. Elections would be held to Bengal Assembly which has 294 seats.
“We have given a call: Defeat Trinamool and save Bengal; Oust BJP and save India. The parties which concur with our stand are welcome to join us in our war against these two parties. I think the Congress does not have any problem with these two slogans” Bose said.
When asked as to whether the tri-colour party was joining the Front in an alliance he said “a Front is a Front, an Alliance is an Alliance and an understanding is an understanding. Three are different things.
In no case there will be an alliance with the Congress. There can be an understanding for which talks are on.”
Other parties like NCP, RJD and JDU were likely to fight the polls jointly with the left Front he said. On who would be the party’s Chief Ministerial candidate Bose said it had been the history of Bengal that the parties go to polls without declaring a Chief Ministerial candidate “as it happened in 1952 during BC Roy and later during PC Sen and Jyoti Basu. None were Chief Ministerial candidates.”
State Opposition leader Surya Kanta Mishra who is unofficially being projected as the party’s electoral face, would contest from Narayangarh seat.
When reminded that the local leaders were already sharing platforms and taking out joint rallies in districts Bose said “let me tell you that there will be no sharing of platforms but added “if there is any violence and if there is an attack by the Trinamool Congress then we will leave aside the flags and jo8in each other for the sake of defence.”
Meanwhile, the CPI(M) has complained to the Election Commission against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and some of her party candidates for “issuing threats to the voters if they voted against the ruling Trinamool Congress.
In its complaint the CPI(M) has referred to Banerjee’s statement where she said the “Central forces would remain there for a few days only but after that it is her party and Government that will remain.”
The CPI(M) has also brought to the ECI’s notice an electoral speech made by Trinamool candidate Abdur Rezzak Mollah who reportedly threatened the voters by saying the “military (read CRPF) will only save you for two months but how will you sleep in the night after they go.” So it is in the voters’ interest that they voted for him and his party, Mollah a veteran Marxist leader and a former State Minister who was expelled from his party a year ago only to be accommodated by the CM in her party said.