like on previous occasions, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s effort to erect a third front before 2014 general elections would be a damp squib, Opposition Marxists has said, adding her federal front cry was aimed at “occupying the political centre stage in Delhi.”
Dubbing her call for the non-Congress, non-BJP Federal Front a joke of sorts, Bengal Opposition leader Suryakanta Mishra said such “knee-jerk endeavours” to settle political scores and “gain political supremacy” in Delhi was bound to fail as the move was “devoid of “long-term planning and common minimum programme (CMP).”
Pooh-pooing the Chief Minister’s call for unity of regional interests Mishra said, “She is just trying to increase her bargaining power with the Congress and the BJP before the 2014,” and reminded how her Trinamool Congress had shuttled between the two parties since its birth in 14 years ago.
Another left party Forward Bloc wondered, how the Bengal Chief Minister who was prone to “dictatorial style of functioning” could go along with the other regional satraps. “How a person who has scanty regards for inner-party democracy would be able to absorb divergent views,” Bloc leader Debabrata Biswas said.
Senior CPI leader AB Bardhan said the likelihood of third front raised by a few Chief Minister becoming successful was faint. RSP leader Kshiti Goswami said the Trinamool Congress was only trying to fish in troubled waters.
The Bengal Chief Minister had earlier on Monday called for a Federal Front comprising non-Congress, non-BJP parties and soon got some kind of endorsement from her Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
She wrote on the Facebook, “a time has come to form a federal front in the coming lok Sabha elections” and insisted “let us talk together. let us stand together.” She urged “all the non-Congress, non-BJP regional parties to launch a united fight to free the country from misrule and anti-people decisions (of the UPA-II Government) and work together to build a better and brighter India.”
The left leaders also reminded “those who wanted to go with the Trinamool Congress” of its “unreliable ways as can be seen from its repeated changing of sides.”