Sonia call to combat Left

KOLKATA: Congress president Sonia Gandhi exhorted party members to fight the Marxists in West Bengal with all their might, but insisted that the high command was open to working with any "secularminded" outfit.
Accusing the CPM of collaborating with the BJP 14 years ago, which, she said, had contributed to the countrywide growth of communal forces, Sonia urged her followers to put up a "sangharsh" with the Left in West Bengal.
Addressing a massive turnout at the Brigade Parade Ground here on Monday, Sonia raked up the issue of a joint rally by former chief minister Jyoti Basu and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee at the same venue in 1988 and said that help from the Marxists was one of the main factors in bringing BJP to power at the Centre. However, later speaking to reporters at the airport, Sonia said, "Anyone who wishes to work with us is welcome." Saying it had always been the Congress'' stand to invite secular-minded parties to jointly combat the grave threat facing the country, she said forging such a unity was a continuous process.
"There is already a working relationship among the Opposition parties in Parliament," she said. Though Sonia refrained from mentioning the Trinamul even once during her 20-minute speech, which began three hours behind schedule, she said at the airport the Congress would work with whoever fitted the bill. Among the thousands who flocked to the rally were Trinamul Congress activists of several districts. With barely three months to go for the panchayat polls in the state, Sonia used every opportunity to nail the Trinamul accusation that Congress was the B-team of the CPM.
"I strongly believe that Congress workers will put up a tooth-and-nail fight against the CPM in this state. The Marxists are responsible for the BJP''s growth. They are responsible for the flight of capital from this state. Even the CAG has pulled up this government for several wrongdoings," she said.
Unlike Sonia, senior state Congress leaders indulged in Mamata bashing. "Many had written off Congress as a political force in this state. This rally proves them wrong," said Congress leader Priya Ranjan Das Munshi. "In order to fight the Marxists, the Trinamul has allied with communal forces. This party will disappear soon. We can''t agree to an anti-CPM grand alliance with these forces in the panchayat polls," he said. Other senior party leaders, including Pranab Mukherjee, Somen Mitra and Pradeep Bhattacharya, agreed with Das Munshi.