Forward Bloc offers to back Tohra

Disclosing that Senior Forward Bloc leader Anil Mukherjee had held discussions with Tohra’s associates in recent months, All India Forward Bloc secretary-general Debabratta Biswas and Ashok Ghosh, member of the party’s Central Secretariat, said no formal understanding had been reached. While Ghosh felt that there was still a possibility of Tohra aligning’ with the Congress, Biswas said, things would be clear in the first week of August – when they are likely to meet Tohra loyalists in Amritsar. “As of now, nobody from his (Tohra) side has responded to our condition to maintain equidistance from both the Congress and the BJP”, Biswas said.

According to Biswas, Tohra does not represent the bourgeois class of which the Congress and the BJP are a part. It is for this reason that we are not averse to a poll tie-up with Tohra, Biswas said.