CALCUTTA, April 9: Close on the heels of the CPI's criticism of big brother CPI(M) for its pro-Congress stand in `search of new friend to strengthen the United Front,' another LF constituent, Forward Block, has voiced its differences on the issue. The All-India Forward Bloc (AIFB) has dismissed the idea of forming a `post-poll alliance of convenience to pull a quick coup on the BJP Government at the Centre for the sake of it.'Saying that such `marriage of convenience would send wrong signals to the people,' the party said: ``Instead, we must try to build up an anti-BJP movement on basis of a greater Left unity both within and outside Parliament and expose the hidden agenda of the government at the Centre.''
``Let the BJP Government collapse under the burden of its own contradictions, pulls and pressures that it has to absorb for clinging to power,'' said the party's All-India General Secretary Debabrata Biswas.
Differing with the CPI(M) leadership on the issue of identifying the Congress as a `newfriend in the process', the Biswas said: ``We see no basic differences between the BJP and the Congress. The Congress is neither democratic nor secular and we cannot have any adjustment with the party.''``The way Sonia Gandhi has taken over the party leadership recently only exposed to what extent it believed in inner-party democracy,''Biswas said.Differing with the CPI(M), the AIFB said: ``the failure of the United Front experiment has proved that an alternative political front worked out on the basis of post-poll alliance cannot survive.''
``We must work out an alternative movement before a front. For a front born of a movement can only survive the test of time,'' Biswas said, adding that ``we must try to bring into the alternative movement all Left-minded people to build up a greater Left movement in the country to resist the BJP and the forces it represents.''
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
