Cong-CPIM impasse over Bengal's RS nominee

Responding to the Left front's withdrawal of support for a Congress nomininee for Rajya Sabha from West Bengal, State Congress president Adhir Chowdhury said that the Left-Congress tie up had been shaken.

The Left front, on Thursday, declared that they did not want Congress support to pitch Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPIM) national general secretary Sitaram Yechury to Rajya Sabha and nor would they support a Congress canditate from Bengal.

"We formed an electoral alliance with the Left ahead of the Assembly elections. It's they who have snapped the ties, not Congress. If one is digging one's own grave, who can save him? The alliance has already received a jolt," Chowdhury said, adding that the CPIM was a "victim of ambiguity".

Chowdhury said that there were possibilities for former State Congress president and Rajya Sabha MP Pradip Bhattacharya to be re-nominated to the upper house. He said that they might need Trinamool Congress (TMC) support to see him through if the CPIM refrained.

"The TMC in all probability will not oppose the Congress candidate to keep itself relevant in national politics. Again, if Congress MLAs who have defected to TMC vote for our candidate, we might not need TMC support at all," he told DNA.

Meanwhile, CPIM MP Mohammed Salim hinted that they might support a Congress candidate after all. "We have said that we might lend our support if the candidate is acceptable to us. Let us wait till the name is announced," Salim told DNA.

In the 294-seat Bengal Assembly, every Rajya Sabha candidate needs 43 first preferential votes. After accounting for defections to TMC, Congress is left with 36 MLAs at the Assembly Left front has 31.