Bose skirts question on possible CPI(M)-Congress alliance

CPI(M) leader Biman Bose today said that his party will take a call next year over a possible alliance with the Congress in 2016 Assembly poll in West Bengal.
"We will speak nothing in December, 2015. Wait for 2016 to come for the answer," Bose, a party politburo member, said when asked by a reporter if there was a possibility of the two parties coming together to fight the Trinamool Congress in the 2016 Assembly poll.
Bose, who held the post of state unit chief since 2006 till Surya Kanta Mishra replaced him last year, was talking to reporters at Nadia district's Haringhata at the end of a 'jatha' (procession) to create mass awareness.

The jatha was organized by the Haringhata unit of the Bengal Platform of Mass Organizations (BMPO) comprising 113 organizations. The BMPO was formed to fight against 15 various state and national level issues.
Bose said, "People who raise their voices against infringement of fundamental rights are being beaten up. Not only that, fake cases are also being slapped against them."
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was asking party workers in public not to obstruct meetings and processions of opposition parties, but in private she was asking them to beat up opposition workers, Bose alleged.

"The chief minister speaks of democracy, but does not follow the basic tenets of democracy and the rules underlying it," Bose alleged.

He regretted that farmers were not getting the proper price for their paddy and there were no subsidies from any government to compensate.
Turning the lens on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bose said, "The PM is touring various foreign countries and saying that he is trying to increase exports, but in reality in the last 18 months exports have decreased and imports increased.