Kolkata, February 12
The CPM wants to build a third front alternative to the UPA and also the
BJP, to come to power after the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, and accordingly party general secretary Prakash Karat has been negotiating with all like-minded political parties, said veteran leader Jyoti Basu here today.
Basu said Karat had
just started the initial move and it was too early to predict when such alternative would
take shape.
The veteran leader today attended the CPM state committee meeting which reviewed the state’s law and order situation vis-à-vis the Dinhata police firing incident and discussed the strategy to be adopted by the CPM in the forthcoming panchayat polls in May.
Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and party secretary Biman Bose were also present.
Basu refused to make any comment on the Dinhata incident vis-à-vis the Forward Bloc’s ongoing agitation against the CPM.
But according to party sources at the meeting, Basu had expressed his dissatisfaction that the police had fired on the Forward Block’s law-violation movement and killed five workers and one NVF personnel.
Mamata Banerjee supported the Forward Block’s demand for withdrawing cases against its workers.
She alleged that several leaders and workers of different political parties had been falsely implicated in criminal cases at the instance of the CPM.
Meanwhile, the Forward Block today brought out a silent protest march in Kolkata against the killing by the police
firing at Dinhata on February 5.
