The Left in West Bengal has refused to pay heed to Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation’s assertion of going light on Trinamool Congress and making Bharatiya Janata Party as the number one enemy in the state.
After their surprising success in Bihar Assembly Elections, CPIML Liberation General Secretary, Dipankar Bhattacharya, had said that Left leaders in Bengal indirectly helped BJP by going after Mamata Banerjee’s TMC.
The CPIML Liberation won 12 of the total 16 seats in which the Left Front candidates were at the top. Following the huge success, Bhattacharya further said that if situation demands, they would have “no problem” in joining hands TMC in the Bengal elections next year.
“The problem in Bengal is that many of our comrades are not viewing the state in the context of national politics. They are fighting against the State Government there. As a result, BJP is gaining,” Bhattacharya said.
“There’s no problem walking with Mamata Banerjee or Congress. We have to understand that the main enemy of this country’s democracy and citizens is BJP. TMC and Congress don’t fall in the same bracket with it.”
At a time when the Left in Bengal has already decided to fight the 2021 Assembly Elections with West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee as their main opponent, Bhattacharya’s statement sent shockwaves in Alimuddin Street, the West Bengal headquarters of CPI (Marxist) in Kolkata.
While the earlier criticisms were anonymous, West Bengal Left Front chairman, Biman Bose, and CPIM General Secretary, Sitaram Yechury, have now officially rejected CPIML Liberation General Secretary’s idea of going soft against TMC.
“The situations in Bengal and Bihar are different. Here, both Trinamool and BJP are harmful for the state. BJP is communal. Some of works done by Trinamool are also same,” Bose was quoted as saying by Bengali daily Anandabazar Patrika.
“There’s no question going soft or having an understanding with TMC in the Bengal Assembly Elections. The Left will fight against both Trinamool and BJP,” the former politburo member of the CPIM added.
Yechury, on the other hand, said, “The kind of violence Trinamool has resorted to and the corruption that they are running, people’s anger has been collectivised against the ruling party. Siding with Trinamool would potentially mean to hand all the anti-incumbency votes to BJP.”
Dismissing any sense of rift between the other left parties and Dipankar Bhattacharyya, Yechury said that all the left and secular parties, including CPIML Liberation, would fight together against TMC and BJP.
Reportedly, CPIM, the former rulling party of the West Bengal and the mightiest force in the state’s Left Front, is under the notion that Bhattacharya was trying to create pressure and make his case appear stronger for a greater share of seatst than other Left parties in the alliance.