Left-Congress bhai-bhai?

Is the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) in West Bengal ready to extend an olive branch to the Congress? At a programme to mark 50 years of the CPI-M mouthpiece, Ganashakti, the party's state secretary, Surjya Kanta Mishra, urged people to fight the Trinamool government "together", irrespective of "the political flag" they held. Politburo member Biman Bose echoed similar sentiments. He said the CPI-M had failed to bring the Left Front and secular parties outside it on to a common platform. "I call upon all of them to join us in fighting this government," he said.