Infighting in Left Front out in the open

Kolkata: The infighting in Left Front has once again come out in the open with Forward Bloc refusing to participate with the Congress in the election campaign.

Naren Chatterjee, state secretary of Forward Bloc, said that under no circumstances, the party would share the dais with the Congress.

The Forward Bloc had opposed the CPI(M)'s move to ink alliance with the Congress before the 2016 Assembly elections. The result was disastrous for the Left Front. In 294 seats in the Bengal Assembly, Left Front got only 32. Of these, the CPI(M) got 26 seats, Forward Bloc, RSP and CPI got 2, 3 and 1 seat respectively.

In the list of 25 nominees for the ensuing Lok Sabha polls, Forward Bloc has three candidates — Govinda Roy from Cooch Behar (SC) seat, Haripada Biswas from Barasat and Bir Singh Mahato from Purulia. Chatterjee made it clear that the party is against inking any alliance with the Congress and party workers will not take part in any rally for Congress. "In 2016 Assembly polls, alliance with Congress was responsible for the electoral disaster. Congress got 44 seats and the LF got only 32 seats. The voters did not accept the alliance and we will have to understand the ground reality," he said.

The Left Front has given 17 seats to the Congress. The Front has turned down the request of Congress to field candidates in Basirhat and Purulia seats.

Somen Mitra, PCC president, said talks with the Left Front are on and the AICC will publish the list of candidates shortly.