Agartala, June 15: Tripura CPM?s ?big brotherly? attitude and attempts to marginalise the smaller partners of the Left Front have evoked a strong reaction from the CPI which, uncharacteristically, chose to vent its ire through the media.

At a news conference here, the state CPI party secretary Prashanta Kopali accused the Left Front government of pursuing policies incompatible with Leftist ideology.

While the attack on the government and the chief minister Manik Sarkar was direct, Kopali indirectly lashed out at the veteran CPM party secretary and Left Front chairman Baidyanath Mazumder.

?The policies of the government are not sanctioned by the Left Front. The front chairman is a passive onlooker, convening meetings once in a blue moon to get the dictates of his party endorsed by the partners,? Kopali said.

The issues which evoked the CPI state secretary?s ire are setting up of private medical colleges, introduction of Value Added Tax (VAT), border fencing and problems arising out of it, composition of the all-party delegation that went to Delhi for discussions with the Union home minister.

?The chief minister appears to ignore the very existence of CPI, or else why would the only CPI legislator Manindra Reang be left out of the all-party delegation that met Shivraj Patil to discuss the border-fencing issue?? Kopali asked.

Kopali, however, welcomed the visit to Delhi to sort out the problems arising from erection of barbed wire fencing along the Bangladesh border.

The CPI secretary, who was accompanied by the veteran party leader Sunil Dasgupta, also accused the government for pursuing policies opposed to the Leftist ideology.

Picking on the issue of ?commercialisation? of education, he condemned the manner in which the state-run B.R. Ambedkar Hospital has been handed over to a Kerala-based organisation Global Educational Net (GEN) for setting up a private medical college.

?Privatising the service sector is totally against the policies of the Left Front and we oppose it at the Centre. But in Tripura, an entire hospital with all its infrastructure, including medical equipment, have been given away to a private party,? Kopali said. He added that the issue had not been discussed with the Front partners before a decision was taken.

The CPI secretary also vented ire on the implementation of VAT in Tripura, saying the government had unilaterally decided to implement it without consulting the Front. ?Initially, the Left Front was opposed to VAT.

But now we find that the government here is supporting it. This is most unethical.?

He added that there should have been a thorough discussion on the issue and a campaign to convince the people before unilaterally implementing the VAT regime.

He also resented what he called ?consistent efforts of the CPM to marginalise the CPI in Tripura?. ?Our minister was arbitrarily dropped from the cabinet, our share of seats in the ADC was reduced unilaterally. We doubt whether the CPM will at all allow us to contest the next Assembly polls,? Kopali said.