A day after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Bannerjee indicated in a television interview that she was not averse to a grand alliance with the Left Parties — whose three decade plus run in power she ended in 2011 — the latter rejected the suggestion outright.
“No one is taking Mamata’s statement seriously,” CPI (M) central committee member Nilotpal Basu said, adding, “after attempting to make the BJP the real opposition in the state during the elections, bolstering the party at the expense of the Left, she is trying to divert the public discourse because she is now facing serious anti-incumbency threat. It is her policies and politics that has made it possible for the BJP to make inroads in West Bengal. This is just a posturing.”
Ms Bannerjee’s remarks were made in the context of the recent success of the RJD-JD(U)-Congress combine in neighbouring Bihar, where the alliance recently won six of 10 seats in the by-elections in the state.
Mr Basu also stressed that the anti-BJP alliance in Bihar could not be replicated in West Bengal: “No one can question (RJD leader) Lalu Prasad Yadav’s secular credentials; (JD-U leader) Sharad Yadav by breaking his alliance with the BJP in the run-up to the general elections at great political expense to his party has also proven his commitment to secularism,” he said, adding, “the Trinamool, by contrast, has pandered to minority communalism and helped the BJP to grow… Mamata’s commitment to secularism is a sham. To fight the BJP today, it is important to articulate against minority communalism, too.”
Meanwhile, senior Trinamool MP Saugata Roy, asked to comment on Ms Bannerjee’s statement, said, “No one should read too much in it at this stage. The Chief Minister was not being specific: all she was saying was that nobody is an untouchable. She is also sending out a message to the BJP.”
Indeed, in the TV interview, while talking about the anti-BJP alliance in Bihar, Ms Bannerjee had said, "If such a situation arise in Bengal, we’ll think over it. .. nobody is untouchable. We had a tie-up with SUCI once. We also had a tie-up with some other smaller parties. If anybody comes forward, we can talk. In a democracy, nobody should shut the door for talks. No option should be closed.” Pressed on whether she was ready to join forces with the CPI(M), she had said, “I didn’t say that. I only said if any proposal comes, we will discuss it within our party.”
Clearly, while it looks unlikely that an anti-BJP front – like the one in Bihar – could come up with the Left Parties, the Trinamool and the Congress at odds with each other right now (the Left is not keen at this stage to do business with the Congress either till it rearticulates its economic world view), the fact that it has come up is an indication that political parties – broadly opposed to the BJP – are thinking of ways and means to halt its progress. For in the recent Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won two seats and secured 17 per cent of the votes – the Left Parties, too, got two seats but with 29.61 per cent of the votes.
Correction
>>“CPI(M) rejects Mamata’s alliance offer” (August 31, 2014) erroneously described Nitish Kumar as JD(U) chief. It should have been Sharad Yadav .
