WB Congress welcomes Yechury's statement

West Bengal Congress Monday welcomed CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury's advocacy for state-specific adjustments for the 2019 general election but said it will wait for the party high command's nod before making a move.

State Congress president Somen Mitra said the CPI(M)'s Bengal unit would have to make the first move in case of seat adjustment as it was the Left party which had unilaterally walked out of the Congress-CPI(M) alliance after the 2016 assembly election.

Senior Congress leader Pradip Bhattacharya said, "We welcome his (Yechury's) statement. We don't think whatever he has said about state-specific adjustment is unjustified. It is true that political equations and situations are different in different states, so in such a scenario coming to a uniform decision (for the entire country) is a problem.

"Therefore there can be state-specific equations," Bhattacharya, who is also the chairman of Congress state coordination committee, told PTI.

But there has to be an endorsement from the high command, which in effect means that it is well aware of what is happening at the state level, he said.

Bhattacharya's comment comes in the backdrop of Yechury saying on Sunday that any talk of a CPI(M)-Congress adjustment for the parliamentary election have to be initiated at the state level as the political situation is different in different states.

The Left leader had virtually ruled out a nationwide tie-up between the two parties.

Mitra said the state unit will only take a call on it after it receives a green signal from the high command.

"We are a national party and we will decide on it only after we receive a green signal from the high command," he said.

The pulling out of the alliance by CPI(M) had sent out a wrong message, he added.

However, a majority of the state Congress leaders are in favour of an informal seat-sharing arrangement with the CPI(M) in West Bengal for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, its senior leaders in the state said.

Some of the top state Congress leaders have even begun "informal talks" with CPI(M) leaders over seat adjustment, they said.

However, the state Congress unit maintained that the final call on the decision of state-specific adjustments with the CPI(M) will be taken by party president Rahul Gandhi.