Bengal BJP too rules out ties with Cong

Speaking to newsmen, Sinha said the BJP-WBTC alliance always considered the CPI-M led ruling left front as their main political rival. But to wrest power from them we do not need the support of the Congress whose own existence in the state was at stake now, he added.

A large number of Congress legislators had already switched their allegiance to the WBTC, while some more would follow suit soon, Sinha said.

Sinha termed the West Bengal Pradesh Congress as the `b’ team of the CPI-M and alleged that the party had lost both its political teeth and credibility to emerge as the true opposition, the credit for which now goes to the BJP-WBTC alliance.

Turninig his attention towards the retirement issue of Chief Minister Jyoti Basu, the BJP state general secretary described the entire issue as a “political gimmick” to divert the attention of any dissension within the Left Front.

That Basu would not retire and Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee would become the new deputy chief minister were foregone conclusions, Sinha said and reiterated his party’s commitment to further intensify its anti-government stances. Apart from highlighting the state’s deteriorating law and order inside the assembly, the state BJP proposed to hold a day-long dharna in the city on November 26 on the same issue, Sinha said.

Referring to Home (police) Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s meeting with Union Home Minister L K Advani in New Delhi on cross-border terrorism, Sinha said it was an irony that despite repeated attempts to draw his attention towards the issue Bhattacharjee refused to admit. “Calcutta has now become the headquarters of a number of terrorist groups in the North East and anything could happen here at anytime”. He called for immediate steps to get out of the “xplosive situation”.

About the ongoing revision of the state’s electoral roll, which would continue till November 30, Sinha alleged that in most of the centres the vital `form six’ was not available. We are also writing to the state chief electoral officer to draw his attention to the issue, the BJP state secretary said and blamed the ruling parties for the related confusion among the new voters.

Among others the newly elected vice-president of the state party P D Chitlangia was present.