The dissident Congress camp continued to criticise the party decision-making, with senior Congress leader Anand Sharma questioning the party’s alliance with the Indian Secular Front (ISF) for the West Bengal elections.
Taking to Twitter, the former Union Minister in the Manmohan Singh Government said that Congress alliance with parties like ISF and other such forces “militates against the core ideology of the party” and Gandhian and Nehruvian secularism, which forms the soul of the party. Sharma is also the Deputy Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha.
Stating that these issues need to be approved by the party’s highest decision-making body, the Congress Working Committee (CWC), Sharma said the Congress cannot be selective in fighting communalists but must do so in all its manifestations, irrespective of religion and colour.
“The presence and endorsement of West Bengal PCC president is painful and shameful, he must clarify,” Sharma said in an apparent reference to visuals of Bengal Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury at a joint rally with the Left and the ISF.
Responding to Anand Sharma’s remarks, Chowdhury said that all decisions with regard to the alliance are taken with the consent of the party’s top leadership and not unilaterally. “We are in charge of a State and don’t take any decision on our own without any permission,” the State Congress chief clarified on the same social media platform. Chowdhury is also the leader of the party in the Lok Sabha.