'Congress will continue its alliance with the Left in Bengal'

The Congress will continue its alliance with the CPI(M)-led Left Front in the state, the West Bengal PCC President said today in the wake of murmurs of opposition from a section of Left Front allies and criticism from within the CPI(M) itself.

"We are happy that CPI(M) state secretary Surjyakanta Mishra has talked in favour of continuing with the alliance," West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee president Adhir Chowdhury told newspersons here.

"We will invite the Left Front to our programmes. We are different political parties and don't decide on political programmes together," Chowdhury said, adding that they would stick to the alliance.

"We had earlier said that the alliance is not just for the elections and that it will continue post-poll, we stand by that," Chowdhury said.

The Congress marginally gained from the alliance in the recently-held Assembly polls in the state while the Left Front came a poor third, losing the main Opposition status to Congress.

Mishra is understood to have told the CPI(M) state committee that there was a need to continue with the alliance in the state in order to resist the undemocratic attack on opposition parties of Bengal.

Mishra told the committee meeting, which was attended by several top central leaders like all-India secretary Sitaram Yechury, Prakash Karat, MA Baby and others, that had the CPI(M) not gone in favour of the alliance in the state, it would have won lesser number of seats than the present tally.

Several Left Front constituents had during a Front meeting on Friday criticised the leadership of its key partner CPI(M) for "compromising" Left unity, alleging that it had forged an "opportunist political alliance" with Congress in West Bengal.