Cong lashes out at Left

BY PARWEZ HAFEEZ

Kolkata

July 17: Now that barely four days are left for the crucial trust vote in Parliament, the controversy over voting with the BJP against the Congress-led UPA government is dogging the CPI(M). A large section of CPI(M) leaders and supporters are wondering how their party, which had always been in the forefront of the fight against communalism and which considered the BJP "untouchable" can now sail in the same boat with it. But this will not be the first time that the Left would be joining hands with the "communal forces" against the Congress.

The CLP leader in West Bengal Manas Bhuniya recalled that way back in 1977, the Left had felt no inhibitions in joining hands with the Jan Sangh (the earlier avatar of the BJP) and some other regional parties for forming an anti-Congress platform. "They shouted slogans like Indira hatao desh bachao in their pursuit of power," he added.

In 1989 the CPI(M) and the BJP again worked together to prevent Rajiv Gandhi from returning to power. Chief minister Jyoti Basu and BJP leader Atal Behari Vajpayee shared a platform from where they spewed venom against the Congress, he said. Again in 1990, Mr Basu held a secret meeting with Mr Vajpayee and Mr Advani in Delhi at a mutual industrialist friend Viren Shah’s residence. Mr Shah later became the governor of West Bengal.