Cong will not be invited to join LF movements: Biman

The unofficial alliance between the CPI(M) and Congress received a major jolt on Friday with Biman Bose announcing that the latter will not be invited to join movements that will be organised in future.

The Left Front meeting held in Alimuddin Street witnessed sharp criticisms against the tie up by the Front partners and this finally forced Bose to issue the statement. The meeting was held to chalk out the future course of movement that will be followed by the Front.

The announcement made just a day before the two-day crucial state committee meeting of CPI(M) which is beginning on Saturday is significant. It may be recalled that CPI(M)’s Politburo in a statement has already stated that the alliance with Congress “was not in consonance with the decision of the Central Committee”.

The Front leaders on Friday threatened to quit if CPI(M) continued hobnobbing with Congress. In the Assembly election RSP has got three seats while Forward Bloc and CPI have got two and one seat respectively.

The Front leaders alleged that the decision to make alliance with Congress was never discussed in the Front and some CPI(M) leaders had deliberately kept the Front partners in the dark.

The Front leaders regretted that in many seats like Alipurduar CPI(M) had backed Congress against the official RSP candidate Nirmal Das. Political experts said the announcement would help the camp opposing the tie-up with Congress at the state committee meeting on Saturday.

It may be recalled that Bidyut Majumdar, Niranjan Chatterjee and Bonani Biswas had criticised the advocates of the alliance in the state committee meeting held in February and had pointed out that it would affect interest of the party badly. But the protagonists of the alliance like Surya Kanta Misra and Gautam Deb had silenced them saying that it was the need of the hour.

Party insiders said to pacify the members of the opposite camp, the pro alliance leaders had talked to some of them and asked them not to raise the issue. But the situation has changed after Friday’s announcement and the pro alliance leaders are likely to receive salvo at Saturday’s meeting.