Sadhan Pande and Pankaj Banerjee, both members of the legislative assembly, who held a convention of their supporters on Sunday, served the Congress leadership with an ultimatum to come forward with a "clear-cut anti-Marxist programme" for West Bengal within the next five days or face further desertion. Senior Congress leader Subrata Mukherjee left the party to join Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool ahead of the Parliamentary elections.

Pande and Pankaj Banerjee have announced plans to form an anti-Marxist platform, called the Progressive Congress Forum, which would not only fight the Marxists but also Congress leaders "who have sold out" to West Bengal's ruling Left Front, which the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leads.

The rebel leadersstressed that the party could survive in the state only if it continued its struggle against the Marxists and that could be done by strengthening those fighting the reds, including Trinamool. They said the national-level understanding between the Congress and the CPI-M need not come in the way of the two parties' age-old rivalry in West Bengal. "If the Congress has to survive, it has to send the right signals to the people to keep alive the struggle against the oppression of the Marxists," Pande said, adding the party could do this by withdrawing its candidate in the south Calcutta constituency in favour of Mamata Banerjee, who is "leading the charge against the Marxists".

"The people have to be convinced first that the Congress was serious in its opposition of the CPI-M," said Pankaj Banerjee. He said by withdrawing its candidate against the Trinamool supremo in the October 3 elections, the Congress could on the one hand "rectify the historic blunder of expelling Mamata from the party" and on the other,give out the message to the people that it was serious about its opposition to the CPI-M.

That their party had no independent existence was evident from the fact that it was toeing the line of the CPI-M, the rebel leaders charged. "The decision to back the nomination of former army chief Shankar Roychowdhury, who was being supported by the Left, for the Rajya Sabha from the state was a blatant instance of surrender of the Congress to the CPI-M," Banerjee alleged.

The Congress has described the rebel convention as an election campaign for Trinamool. "We have said earlier and we are repeating that all those, who cannot accept the party's line of functioning are free to leave," an exasperated Atish Sinha, the Congress leader in the West Bengal Assembly, said. "We have no pact with the Marxists in the state and we have added sparate chapters in our election manifesto to that effect," said state Congress president ABA Ghani Khan Chowdhury. Political observers feel a further disintegration of the Congress inthe state was imminent.