The party leaders and workers, who smelt a rat after Chief Minister Jyoti Basu met Congress president Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi recently, had to be told by Congress Working Committee member Pranab Mukherjee that ``the Congress will not form a government with CPI (M) support.''

``We'll not form the Government by entering into any back door understanding; wait till November 25, till the Assembly elections are over and we'll be able to form a government with the people's mandate,'' Mukherjee told the gathering.

The incident threw up old and disturbing questions: ``Is the AICC really with the state Congress in its struggle against the CPI (M)-led LF?''

Top state leaders,who found it an embarrassing question to answer, chose the public meeting to dispel the doubts of state level leaders after the Sonia-Basu meeting.

Mukherjee today not only ``ruled out any alliance with the CPI (M) in forming an alternative government'' but asked party workers to visit every village and ``tell people of Bengal to oust the CPI (M)-led Left Front from power.''

Mukherjee dismissed repeated CPI (M)'s claims of a Congress Government at the Centre with its support, as part of the Left's regret and repentance for having indulged in ``blind anti-Congressism for too long.''

He told the gathering the CPI (M) might, ``regret its blind anti-Congressism'', but that will not, ``leave us flattered, and we will not give up our immediate political priorities of fighting the CPI (M) in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura.''

Assuring the state party workers that ``Sonia Gandhi's meeting with Basu was no political gang-up, like the media and BJP would make it out to be,'' Mukherjee said, ``Leaders of twoparties can meet, discuss and exchange views.''

Describing the BJP-led coalition and the Prime Minister as ``apprentices'', Mukherjee said, ``Political apprentices cannot carry on with the serious business of running the Government, and we have landed in a situation where we do not know what to do with the rising prices of essential commodities.''

WBPCC president A B A Gani Khan Chowdhury, who also spoke on the occasion, criticised the Trinamool Congress and its leaders for having branded the state Congress as the CPI (M)'s `B team.'

He said: ``Those who have said the Congress is a spent force rather see the spirit with which the crowd gathered here today to protest the price rise.''

WBPCC's working president Priyaranjan Dasmunshi, who was conspicuous by his absence, faced censure for ``giving irresponsible statements to the press.''