NEW DELHI, APRIL 9: The ``signed joint statement'' issued by four senior CWC members last night, reiterating the party's stand on secularism in the context of the proposed ``grand alliance'' in West Bengal, is a manifestation of the high command's nervousness over its state unit's forthright approach for a tie-up with the Trinamool Congress.In fact, so anxious was the high command to make its stand clear on the ``confusion'' generated by the state unit as well as the BJP's ``friendliness'' that one of the CWC members whose name figures in the statement wasn't apparently even aware of it. The member, however, subscribed to the stand taken in the statement, avoiding an embarrassing situation.In a signed and strongly-worded statement, CWC members Arjun Singh, Madhavrao Scindia, Ahmed Patel and Prabha Rao had yesterday made clear that while it was all right to talk to ``like-minded parties'' for an alliance in West Bengal, they would ensure that there was no direct or indirect linkage with the BJP. The party was committed to the preservation of the secular polity of India and any step which diluted this won't be acceptable to the Congress, the statement said.The statement, which significantly comes from senior leaders who are considered close to 10 Janpath, is however being viewed in party circles as a ``panic reaction'' by the high command to developments in Bengal where an over-enthusiastic state unit led by A B Ghani Khan Choudhary and Somen Mitra has been making more-than-friendly overtures to Trinamool chief Mamata Bannerjee, despite her insistence to stick with the NDA.With a section of the state unit first engineering the defeat of the party's official Rajya Sabha nominee, D P Ray, and then giving the high command a virtual fait accompli on a ``grand alliance'' with Mamata, the party high command is apprehensive about the intentions of the state leadership.Both Choudhary and Mitra have been strangely silent on whether the proposed alliance depended on Mamata dumping the NDA, and the high command has also been put in a spot by the calculated response of the BJP, which has stated that it doesn't mind the Trinamool tying up with the Congress.Party sources say the party obviously cannot at any cost risk being seen to be in league with the BJP, even indirectly, to defeat the Left Front in Bengal since that sceanrio would, apart from damaging its secular credentials, also bring to an end its tacit alliance with the Left parties at the Centre on taking on the BJP-led Government.From all indications, however, the state unit isn't caring much about that, at least for the present. Having seen its counterpart in Bihar unscrupulously join hands with the RJD in power-sharing after over a decade's gap, a dominant section of the state unit apparently smells power round the corner after aligning with Mamata, nothwithstanding her BJP links.All this spells more trouble for Sonia, as party insiders fear that any move by the high command to rein in the state unit and link any alliance with the Trinamool to the latter's disassociation from the NDA could cause a vertical split in the party, severely damaging its electoral prospects in the assembly elections next year.
