“Senior CPI-M and CPI leaders are busy with election-related meetings and, therefore, will not be able to attend the meeting in Mumbai in connection with Gandhi’s yatra conclusion. After all, it is a Congress function and we don’t have to attend it,” said a senior Left leader aware of the thinking.
The decision comes in the backdrop of the Left opposing Gandhi’s candidature from his Wayanad seat in Kerala against a CPI candidate. The Left maintains that since Gandhi is a top leader of the anti-BJP bloc, he should have contested against a BJP candidate. They questioned why Gandhi has chosen a seat where the Left is his principal rival and BJP is a marginal player. The Left leaders also have a grouse about Congress “being not accommodative” about their demands for alliance in states like Telangana and Jharkhand.
Left-COngress Bengal Talks
Leaders of West Bengal Congress and the state’s Left Front, it is learnt, have started talks for yet another alliance in West Bengal.
