Serious differences within the Left came to the fore with the Forward Bloc attacking the CPI(M) and the CPI for toeing a soft line on the Congress and confusing the people with their duplicity.Following its National Central Committee meeting, Forward Bloc leader Debabrata Biswas hit out at the CPI-CPI(M) for causing harm to Left unity and ideology.Defining ‘‘secular/democratic parties’’ as Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party and Janata Dal, the Forward Bloc leaders said: ‘‘It is in the welfare of the people that the CPM and CPI give up their duplicity and come in the open about their overt and covert relations with the Congress party.’’Citing the CPI(M)’s recent bonhomie with veteran Congress leader K. Karunakaran as a example of its ‘‘political duplicity’’, Biswas said: ‘‘Do they forget the role Karunakaran played during the Emergency and the number of Left leaders he got bumped off?’’Calling the Congress and BJP two sides of the same coin, Bloc chairman N. Vellapan Nair and general secretary G. Devarajan said: ‘‘We should fight any force that is against WTO, economic reforms and communalism.’’ This is the first time, the Bloc has come out so strongly against the CPI-CPI(M).Incidentally, it was under pressure from smaller Left parties that the CPI and CPI(M) abandoned the idea of having a broad understanding with the Congress in the Assembly polls and decided to confine it to floor management in Parliament.
