Basu’s Appeal to Cong Voters to Vote for Left Absurd, Unacceptable: PCC

The West Bengal Congress has turned down the appeal by nonagenarian CPI (M) leader Jyoti Basu who asked Congress supporters to vote for the Left in the forthcoming by-elections to ten assembly seats in the state on November 7.

Terming Basu’s appeal as ‘absurd’ and ‘unacceptable’, state congress working president Pradip Bhattacharya said that it’s CPM leadership’s cunning ploy to divide the Congress-Trinamool Congress alliance votes.

“After successive debacles at the hustings, the CPI (M) is now desperate to break the opposition’s unity,” he said.

In what was perceived as a surprising move, Basu on Sunday asked congress voters to vote for the Left saying that the Trinamool Congress was unleashing violence together with the Maoists.

This is the first time that the CPI (M) had directly appealed to Congress supporters to vote for the Left.

“Our result in the last Lok Sabha election was poor. Some of our sympathisers and friends had voted against us. It is not their fault. We could not take our view points properly to the people. There were some mistakes on the part of the CPI-M… I am specially requesting you to come forward for peace, development and discipline and support the Leftists,” he said in a statement.

The Congress-Trinamool Congress alliance is confident of winning all the 10 seats in the by-election, Bhattacharya said. “The results will prove that the alliance is solid and
any attempt to break it will not succeed.”