Kolkata: The West Bengal Congress on Monday rejected the appeal by nonagenarian CPI(M) leader Jyoti Basu
to Congress supporters to vote for the Left in the upcoming
by-elections to 10 Assembly seats in the state on November 7.
Describing it is an absurd and unacceptable proposal,
PCC working president Pradip Bhattacharya said, “This is a
clever ploy on the part of the CPI(M) leadership to divide the
Congress-Trinamool Congress alliance votes.”
"After successive debacles at the hustings, the CPI(M)
is now desperate to break the opposition's unity," he said.
In a surprise development, Basu yesterday appealed to
Congress voters for support to Leftists accusing the Trinamool
Congress of unleashing violence together with the Maoists.
This is the first time that the CPI(M) had directly
appealed to Congress supporters to vote for the Left.
"Our result in the last Lok Sabha election was poor.
Some of our sympathisers and friends had voted against us. It
is not their fault. We could not take our viewpoints properly
to the people. There were some mistakes on the part of the
CPI-M... I am specially requesting you to come forward for
peace, development and discipline and support the Leftists",
he said in a statement.
The Congress-Trinamool Congress alliance is confident
of winning all the 10 seats in the by-election, Bhattacharya
said. "The results will prove that the alliance is solid and
any attempt to break it will not succeed."
"Basu's statement has exposed the bankruptcy of the
CPI(M) in West Bengal. How can the Congress supporters cast
their votes in favour of the CPI(M) which is their party's
political enemy ?", Bhattacharya said.
Claiming that the appeal by Basu had been made at the
behest of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and CPI(M)
state secretary Biman Bose, he said violence in West Bengal
politics started since 1967 when the United Front, in the
formation of which Jyoti Basu played a major role, came to
power.
Referring to Basu's statement that CPI(M) "had
provided unconditional support to the Congress in the interest
of the country and to fight communalism" after the 2004 Lok
Sabha polls, Bhattacharya said, "On the contrary, it was the
compulsion of the CPI(M) to support a secular government at
that time."
"The CPI(M), however, did not keep that in mind while
withdrawing support from the UPA government. The UPA was
capable enough to complete its five-year tenure in office
without the CPI(M) support," he said.
Bureau Report
First Published: Monday, November 02, 2009, 13:18