Thursday, September 7 2006 11:41 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kolkata: CPI(M) partriarch Jyoti Basu yesterday (Sept 6, 2006) came down heavily on the Congress and Trinamool Congress' unofficial pact in the forthcoming by-election to three Lok Sabha and an assembly seat in West Bengal saying it was an 'unprincipled' understanding.

"The two parties had entered into such an alliance in the 2001 assembly elections, but the people rejected it outright realising the unprincipled political opportunism of the two," Basu told sources here.

The Trinamool Congress, he said, was only the other day branding the Congress as the B team of leftists and now it was making common cause against the Left Front.



It betrayed the lack of political ethics and unabashed opportunism. "They have no principles and do not believe in morality in politics," Basu, a former West Bengal chief minister said.

Basu who has not been keeping well for quite some time said he was hopeful that he would be able to attend the CPI(M) Polit Bureau meeting to be held here on September 12 and 13.

Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress is still part of the BJP-led NDA, but this has not prevented the Congress brass from paving the way for an informal understanding with her party against the marxists for the bypolls.