NEW DELHI, April 26: So did the CPM Politburo clear West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu's name to head a Third Force alternative government or not?``Yes,'' says veteran CPM leader Somnath Chatterjee.``No'', says party General Secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet, ``Somnath got it wrong''.L'affaire Basu gets curiouser and curiouser.Last night Chatterjee told a television news programme that the CPM Politburo had cleared Basu's name as prime ministerial candidate.But a day after the Congress dashed the CPM hopes by ruling out their support to any alternative coalition, Surjeet denied that the party's highest decision-making body had decided to field Basu. Repeatedly questioned about the Politburo's decision and Chatterjee's assertions on television, Surjeet said Chatterjee's statement ``is not correct. It is wrong''.``So would the party take disciplinary action against Chatterjee for violating party discipline?''Surjeet's reply was noncommittal. ``If we get a complaint, we will examine it''.All of last week as consultations between political parties reached a crescendo, there was speculation that the CPM leadership would give in to calls from different political quarters that Basu should head a Third Front alternative government.Then came Chatterjee's bombshell on television. ``When everybody except the BJP has been asking whether Basu could be the prime minister even my party today said yes'', he said.And the twice-denied Basu hit out at the Congress for backing off from supporting a Third Front coalition, after earlier having told the CPM to go ahead with its efforts to cobble together an alternative.Basu said Sonia Gandhi had told him before the Congress Working Committee meeting on yesterday to decide on his party's course of action after the Congress failed to muster the requisite numbers to form the government.``When we did (reach a decision), we came to know that they are not supporting us,'' Basu told journalists who questioned him about the CPM blaming Congress for the turn of political events which have precipitated a mid-term poll.CPM watchers explain that the differing voices are but a reflection of the views held by a section of the party, especially its West Bengal unit, that it's time Basu donned a national role after 22 years of heading the state government. But for an overwhelming majority of the party it is a relief that Basu did not have to head what would have been a messy coalition, out of which he would not have emerged unscathed. Top
