Other States - West Bengal   

Basu warns against anti-Left alliance

Special Correspondent

"Trinamool-BJP efforts to remove ruling Left Front from power will not succeed"

KOLKATA: Senior CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Jyoti Basu on Tuesday said the Congress was likely to go in for tacit electoral understanding with the Trinamool Congress-BJP combine during the West Bengal Assembly elections due next year. The Congress has, however, denied it.

"Their [the anti-Left forces] efforts to remove the ruling Left Front from power will not succeed as the people know them well," Mr. Basu said in an apparent reference to Trinamool chief Mamata Bannerji and BJP president L.K. Advani's presence at a convention organised by the Trinamool Youth Congress here on Sunday. The Trinamool described the meet as a countdown to the coming elections.

Despite Ms. Banerjee's request, Defence Minister and president of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee, Pranab Mukherjee, did not attend the convention because of Mr. Advani's presence. Mr. Advani and Ms. Banerjee, however, repeated their plea to the Congress to join them in their fight against the Left Front in the polls. Also presentwas the former West Bengal Chief Minister and veteran Congress leader, Siddhartha Shankar Ray.

They were the "evil forces" who would be defeated, Mr. Basu said. He alleged that Mr. Ray had engineered the worst kind of rigging in the 1972 Assembly polls. The people would not accept communal politics. He also dismissed Mr. Advani's charge that there was no democracy in the State under the Left Front rule. "I am hearing this for the first time."

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Basu warns against anti-Left alliance

Copyright © 2005, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu