Mixed signals

Looks like the Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI(M)-Congress bonhomie in West Bengal is causing considerable disenchantment among CPI(M) allies in the state. After CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said on Sunday that “the support of all forces opposed to Trinamool has to be strengthened”, Kshiti Goswami, state secretary of the Revolutionary Socialist Party, a prominent Left Front partner since its formation in 1977, said the party did not “approve of the CPI(M)’s tie-up with the Congress”. While Front partners continued to give out mixed signals, Bengal Congress put up a brave front — state Congress chief Adhir Chowdhury told a gathering that “we haven’t got any message from the CPI(M) that the alliance doesn’t exist any longer”.