CPI(M) may look to ally with Cong

THE CENTRAL PANEL HAD EARLIER SNUBBED THE WEST BENGAL UNIT FOR GOING WITH THE CONGRESS IN THE LAST ASSEMBLY POLLS

The CPI(M)’s West Bengal leadership may once again raise the demand for an alliance with the Congress before the party’s Central Committee (CC).

The renewed demand comes in the backdrop of the assembly polls in five states, in which the BJP swept Uttar Pradesh, formed governments in Manipur and Assam with help of allies.

The Bengal lobby of the party also wants to point out to the steep rise of the BJP’s vote share in the recently held by-polls in West Bengal.

The two-day long meeting of the CC, CPI(M)’s highest executive body, has started its meeting on Monday to discuss national political issues and affairs related to poll-bound Tripura.

“When there are talks in different parties for a pacts against Narendra Modi-led BJP, can the CPI(M) afford to stay aloof?” asked a senior leader from West Bengal, where the party ruled for 34 years and then got ousted by Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress in 2011.

In UP, the Congress joined hands with the Samajwadi Party for the first time. RJD chief Lalu Prasad has said that Bihar alliance, where JDU, RJD and the Congress are partners, must continue till 2019 polls.

The CC had snubbed the state unit for going with the Congress in the last assembly polls.

The CPI(M) had then decided to go with left democratic forces. As a result, it didn’t join hands with Nitish Kumar in Bihar or J Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadu.

But in Bengal, the local comrades almost defied the central diktat and forged unwritten alliance with the Congress claiming it was necessary for its survival.

Even as the party lost the state polls badly, the Bengal unit defended its action and maintained that they would have fared worse if there was no alliance.