The Bengal left parties particularly the CPI(M) seem vertically divided over the issue of a permanent left-Congress alliance, sources say.
While a lobby led by CPI(M) Politburo member and left Front chairman Biman Bose wants a broad-based coalition of left forces including the smaller parties like the SUCI and CPI(Ml) the pro-Congress group led by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Suryakanta Mishra are firmly in favour of a “permanent mechanism” with the Congress.
The sharp differences tended to come to the fore on Friday when Bose speaking about a resistance movement against the ongoing attacks on the left workers throughout the State said his party was in favour of “a broad-based alliance with left Front partners and also the left parties that are currently not in the Front” like the SUCI and the CPI(Ml).
He remained mysteriously silent when asked to comment on a joint fight with the Congress.
Incidentally, the tri-colour party has bagged the place of the principal opposition party with 44 seats while the left has been relegated to the third position with 33 seats making it all the more difficult for them to reach out to the interior areas.
The lesser partners like the CPI, RSP and the Forward Bloc have also openly questioned the efficacy of a left-Congress alliance insisting neither the left nor the Congress supports would accept the alliance.
“We could perhaps get more votes and more seats had we fought alone” said a CPI leader. However,
Mishra, the CPI(M) State committee secretary is known to have told his party leadership that the result would have been even worse had there not been an electoral understanding between the two sides.
In fact Mishra and Md Salim, both politburo members have made a strong case for a permanent alliance with the Congress in the recently held politburo meeting in Delhi.
The CPI(M) State committee is to discuss the election-related issues in a few days from now when the question of alliance will be raised sources said.
Despite Bose’s stands on a Congress-less mass struggle the pro-alliance lobby has made its intention clear with the left legislature Party Sujan Chakrabarty visiting the violence affected areas along with Opposition leader and Congress MlA Abdul Mannan.
In fact the majority members of the Pradesh Congress want the party to leave the chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee to be left with the left. This in a gesture for the support the party got from the left enabling it to win the number of seats it did in the Assembly elections.
PAC is the second most important position after the Opposition leader.
Meanwhile, Abdul Mannan refused to comment on Bose’s statement saying “if at all he has made such statement then it will be addressed by our Pradesh Congress president Adhir Chowdhury.