‘Congress has tied up with Left at lower level’

The West Bengal Congress is mounting pressure on the AICC for an alliance with the Left in the coming Assembly polls, state PCC chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Thursday claimed that the alliance has taken place at the lower level. The polls are expected in mid April.

“The alliance has taken place at the lower level and it is a fact. The workers have come together to unitedly fight the atrocities and terror unleashed by the ruling party (Trinamul Congress),” Mr Chowdhury, a known detractor of state chief minister Mamata Banerjee, told reporters at the AICC briefing.

Asked what was the view of Congress high command on the alliance, he said “our leadership is not blind. It is very conscious. Our views are very clear. In order to defeat (ruling Trinamul Congress), all democratic and secular forces should come together.”

The Congress had contested the last Assembly polls in alliance with the Trinamul Congress which led to the ouster of CPI(M)-led Left front from power after over three decades of rule.

Meanwhile, the Congress also distanced itself from senior leader P. Chidambaram’s remark that the case of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, who was hanged in 2013, “was perhaps not correctly decided”.

“The decision of the honourable Supreme Court in the Afzal Guru case is final and declaratory of law and justice in the case. It is futile to reopen this debate since the matter has attained judicial finality,” AICC spokesman Ashwani Kumar told reporters.

Mr Kumar said, “Congress party accepts the SC judgment in the case as final and correct”. He said the Supreme Court has itself said that “we are not infallible but we are final.”

Mr Chidambaram has been quoted as having said in a newspaper interview that he felt it was possible to hold an “honest opinion” that the Afzal Guru case was “perhaps not correctly decided” and that there were “grave doubts about the extent of his involvement” in the Parliament attack.