Thiruvananthapuram, May 25 : Rajya Sabha MP and Congress working committee member A K Antony has once again broached the possibility of a coalition of the Congress, Left and other like-minded secular parties to counter the communal politics of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Speaking to Manorama News channel on Thursday, the Congress veteran lamented that the CPI(M) Kerala unit was the stumbling block for a broader national-level alliance between the Congress and the Left parties to take on the BJP at the centre.
Insinuating that the CPI(M) central leadership is inclined to forge a tie-up with the Congress party at the national level, Antony told the channel that the CPI(M) Kerala unit would have to eventually toe the line of their central leadership and accede to an alliance with the Congress.
Now that the CPI(M) Bengal leadership had weakened, the Kerala unit leaders were calling the shots at the centre and they were proving to be the sole obstacle to a Congress-Left alliance, he said.
To buttress his point that it was possible for two parties to join hands at the national level against a common rival even as differences persist at the state-level, Antony cited the co-operation between the Trinamool Congress and the CPI(M).
Antony also told the news channel that the opposition parties at the centre would field a common candidate for the presidential election.
However, CPI(M) Kerala unit secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan termed Antony’s call for a Congress-Left alliance as a ‘daydream’ of the latter.
Coming down on the Congress party, Kodiyeri said that it was the ten-year governance of the Congress-led UPA alliance at the centre that paved the way for the BJP to storm to power on its own.
Forging an alliance with the Congress that helped BJP to ascend to power at the centre would prove counter-productive to the CPI(M), he said.
Stating that Congress was not a trustworthy ally to take on the BJP, the CPI(M) leader pointed to the recent trend of a steady stream of senior Congress leaders switching over to the BJP.
Kodiyeri, however, pledged the party’s support should the opposition parties field a common candidate in the presidential election against the BJP’s candidate.
