Absurd alliance

The attempt to forge a front of former prime ministers may have only caused amused scepticism. The same, however, cannot be said of the mo...

The attempt to forge a front of former prime ministers may have only caused amused scepticism. The same, however, cannot be said of the move aimed at the formidable combination of a former Railway Minister and the present one.

The alliance proposed between A.B.A. Ghani Khan Chowdhury and Mamata Banerjee may provoke some merriment, but no cynicism will be warranted about the strength of the sentiment behind it. The Man from Malda would not let anyone in the Congress, at the national or the state level, derail the plan for a Mahajot to defeat the Marxists in West Bengal. He wants an immediate green signal from the high command, with the rest of the state party calling off its rail roko8217; in this regard, for the Trinamool-driven train to power.

Else, he threatens, he will walk out of the Congress. It is debatable whether such staunchness has received its due support from the Didi. Even while showering gratitude for his prompt endorsement of the grand alliance8217; proposal, she has repeatedly and strongly reiterated her even greater commitment to an anchor alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party. And she has not exactly enthused Barkatda8217;s devoted share of the dwindling Congress flock by declaring that quot;the people will decidequot; on the first Chief Minister of a post-Jyoti Basu phase in the event of the eagerly expected Left Front debacle in the State Assembly elections due early next year.

It is not the Mamata factor alone, however, that should temper euphoria over the Mahajot.

More important should be the likely national impact of the alliance, if it does materialise despite the doubting Priya Ranjan Das Munshis and Saugata Roys of the state Congress. Questions in this regard are not answered by Chowdhury8217;s argument that objections to a Congress-BJP tie-up as part of the contemplated alliance are irrelevant to the objective of avoiding a split in the anti-Marxist vote and thus isolating and ensuring an end to the CPI M-led rule in the state.

It is his implied claim about the BJP8217;s inclusion in the Mahajot making no material difference untenable as it is, considering the party8217;s provenly increasing electoral potential even in the Left-led state that is irrelevant to the larger issue involved. The alliance, viewed from an all-India angle, is an obvious absurdity. It is so, on two counts.

The grand alliance8217;, in the first place, is grossly incompatible with the stridently uncompromising opposition to the BJP and the National Democratic Alliance adopted by the Congress at the national level. It is also specially and sharply at variance with the increasingly close alliance between the Congress and the once implacably anti-Congress CPI M in several states including, notably Bihar and Tamil Nadu. The Left Front may command little credibility when it waxes indignant over what it calls an quot;unholy alliancequot;.

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The Left has not been loftily above alliances of such a puritanical description. The point, however, is that the Mahajot seeks to make a mockery of the political polarisation at the national as well as the state level that is a product of the people8217;s mandate. This is a point that deserves note also by the BJP which has rushed to welcome the idea without going into its ramifications.