Gupta’s okay to Cong joining Govt has CPI in a fix

CALCUTTA, April 30: Indrajit Gupta has done it again. The Union Home Minister and senior Communist Party of India leader has put the member...

CALCUTTA, April 30: Indrajit Gupta has done it again. The Union Home Minister and senior Communist Party of India leader has put the members of his party’s West Bengal unit in a fix with his statement to a Bengali daily recently that “the United Front would not turn away the Congress just like that if it wants to join the Government.”

During an interview to the paper, Gupta claimed that CPI was prepared to consider the Congress proposal, and that anti-Congress sentiments should be replaced with rational thinking and a strategy to keep off the “growing communal forces.”

Gupta’s position goes against the Left Front’s well-known, and oft-repeated, political line that if the Congress joined the UF Government, they would withdraw support to it.

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Speaking to Express News Service CPI leaders in West Bengal said: “This is Gupta’s personal view and does not represent the collective view of the party as he is saying.”

An influential state-level leader on the condition of anonymity added: “We stick to our original line that if the Congress joined the UF, we will quit the Front…We don’t share his views.”

The state CPI leaders are particularly miffed at Gupta’s statement as he had earlier too created a similar controversy by criticising H D Deve Gowda while he was still the prime minister. The state party leaders had a difficult time disowning Gupta’s views then.

Party leaders feel it’s time the CPI concentrated on West Bengal, where the Congress happens to be the Left’s main opposition. Any tie-up with the party at the Centre would only create problems for CPI, they point out.

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Gupta’s views seem to have few takers in the CPI(M) too. During his recent visit to the state, the CPI leader had met Chief Minister Jyoti Basu to discuss the issue of Tamil Maanila Congress joining the I K Gujral Government. Since then, Basu has reiterated on several occasions that the CPI(M) would withdraw support to the UF Government if the Congress joined it.