Sunday, January 8 2006 18:19 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kolkata: Veteran Communist Party of India (CPI) Marxist (M) politburo member Jyoti Basu today (Jan 8,2006)charged Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Trinamool Congress with trying to forge a covert alliance in West Bengal to topple the state's ruling Left Front in the coming Assembly polls.

Alleging that the opposition parties in the state neither believed in principles nor had any policies and programmes, the CPI(M) patriarch described the Congress as a reactionary party that carried out the orders of the USA, International monetary Front and the World Bank.

Ridiculing the proposed anti-left grand alliance in the state, Basu said that the Congress and the Trinamool had also come together before the previous state assembly elections in 2001.

''But that alliance had come a cropper. But together, they got only one seat more than what the undivided Congress won in 1996,'' he said.

''This time, it may not be possible for the Congress,Trinamool congress and the BJP to form an open alliance. But they may forge a covert alliance,'' he said, addressing a rally organised by his party at the Brigade Parade Ground to launch the electoral campaign for the coming polls.

Urging the people to ensure that the 'red fort' in Bengal was not harmed, Basu reminded the gathering that the Trinamool had managed to win only one seat in the parliamentary polls last year.

''But even (Trianmool Congress supremo) Mamata Banerjee, the only victorius candidate of the party, got two lakh vote less than the previous elections,'' Basu thundered.

Stating that the opposition parties had been demanding central intervention in West Bengal ever since the Left Front government came to power in 1977, Biswas said, ''Every time this happened, the people came to our rescue. Now we are so powerful that the Centre would not dare to touch us. This is because we have been seeking votes for our performance.''

Referring to a recent statement by former WBPCC chief and state Chief Minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray that opposition parties should form a grand alliance including the BJP to defeat the CPI(M), Biswas said ''It is our party that has protected the state from their brand of politics of murder and attempts to throttle democracy.''

After the Assembly elections, the CPI(M) will carry forward its programme of development and strengthening of democracy, ''By isolating the like of Advani and Ray from the people,'' Biswas said.