CPI backs Mamata Banerjee on Cong’s inclusion in anti-BJP front

Hyderabad: The CPI has backed West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s stand favouring inclusion of the Congress in a front to take on the BJP in the general elections next year.

On the Trinamul Congress leader’s efforts to forge Opposition unity, CPI general secretary Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy said electoral adjustment among the Opposition parties at the national level may not be possible. “But in the states, according to their specific conditions, there should be some sort of one-to-one contest to defeat the BJP,” the veteran leader said.

Mr Reddy said in states like West Bengal and Kerala, where the Left is directly pitted against the Trinamul Congress and the Congress respectively, joining of forces between them would not be possible. “It (electoral adjustment) will be possible in states where this type of a situation (as exists in West Bengal and Kerala) is not there,” he said.

“I can’t speak on behalf of the entire Left. But my party’s opinion is wherever there is a possibility with a regional party and other parties (to put up a common candidate against the BJP), there should be some sort of understanding and we are not for exclusion of the Congress where there is a possibility (for electoral understanding),” the CPI leader said.