No Alliance With Trinamool In Bengal, Can Join Hands Nationally: CPI(M)

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury Friday ruled out the possibility of allying with Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal but the Left party will not hesitate to join hands with opposition parties, including TMC nationally to defeat BJP.

There are "contradictions" in the approach of the two parties in fighting BJP and there is no question of an alliance with the ruling TMC in Bengal as it has inflicted atrocities on grassroot level CPI(M) workers, he said.

At the same time he said, "No other political party can be compared to BJP which is trying to destroy the Constitution of the country ... BJP as the most dangerous threat to the idea of India", Mr Yechury told a press conference here, "There is no question of joining hands with TMC because of the contradiction on the ground. The TMC attacks our workers at the ground level. Why are there attacks on the red party volunteers and people who demand that vaccination be done impartially? If such things happen, there will be resistance".

"However, nationally we have already identified BJP as the main enemy and no party can be compared with it. Nationally we will continue our participation in the unity of secular opposition parties.

"Both the TMC supremo and I had joined various opposition meetings where I had prepared the opposition draft and she had signed it," he said.

Mr Yechury, who was in the city to take part in the state committee meeting, said the political situations at the state and the Centre are not the same.

"In Kerala we are fighting against the Congress but at the national level we are fighting against the BJP. So political decisions are taken based on concrete situations," he said.

The communist party, which has been pushed to the margin of Bengal politics after failing to open its account in the last assembly poll in the state it had ruled for 34 years till 2011, is divided on whether to join hands with TMC or not to fight against BJP in the state, political observers said.

The party is faced with a similar question in Tripura where TMC hopes to gain ground by fighting against the BJP government.

The CPI (M)-led Left Front is the main opposition in the northeastern state.

"Those who were in TMC in Tripura have joined BJP. Later some of them became ministers in the BJP cabinet. The TMC does not have any base in Tripura. It is the Left which is fighting against the saffron onslaught there," Yechury said.

Admitting that coinage of terms such as "BJMOOL" equating BJP and TMC during the West Bengal assembly polls was a mistake and the party''s central leadership has taken note of it, Mr Yechury said.

"It was decided by the CPI(M) central committee that its main target was the BJP. Even then equating the two (BJP and TMC) was wrong. The central committee discussed the issue and said it was wrong. The state committee too said it was wrong," he said.

The CPI-M Parliamentary group leader said the COVID-19 mismanagement by the central government and the virtual destruction of the country's economy by its policies is causing severe misery to the people.

He blamed the BJP government for its obdurate refusal to discuss the Pegasus spyware surveillance issue and for displaying an "unprecedented brazen refusal" to be accountable to the Parliament.

"Instead of answering the questions, the government tried to escape any accountability and even evaded answering the issue in the Parliament," he said.

Meanwhile, the CPI(M) state committee has proposed to set an age-limit of 60 for entry in it.

"There is a proposal that after the next state conference later this year the upper age limit for entry into the state committee will be fixed at 60. Suppose a leader has attained 60, then he/she will not be eligible for entry to the state committee. For existing members if a leader has attained the age of 72, then he/she will be dropped from the state unit," a senior CPI(M) leader said on condition of anonymity.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)