Angry? Mamata Banerjee on Sunday: (Bishwarup Dutta)

Calcutta, Dec. 30: Mamata Banerjee today announced an anti-CPM front comprising 16 parties but minus the Congress and the Left parties that had raised a hue and cry over Nandigram and Singur.

The Progressive Secular Democratic Front, forged with an eye on next year’s panchayat polls, is also without the BJP. Most parties in it do not have much of a presence in Bengal.

Some of the fledgling front’s constituents are Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, H.D. Deve Gowda’s Janata Dal (S), Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (U) and the Janawadi Forward Bloc, which comprises leaders expelled from the Forward Bloc.

A grim-faced Mamata, stung by her failure to win over any of the better-known par- ties, hit out at the Congress, accusing it of being “opportunistic”.

“I held talks with the Congress at the central and state levels. But I am nobody’s slave and won’t go by their dictates. They have no problem informally aligning with us to run municipalities and zilla parishads but turn coy when it comes to a formal electoral understanding,” she fumed.

“Will the Congress shun the CPM at the Centre? They are helping the CPM by putting up separate candidates.”

The Trinamul chief said the BJP would have joined her but she had kept it at bay because the Congress had made that a condition for formally signing up. But finally, the Congress had refused to join her.

“The BJP is ready to join if we call it. But in view of the reservations of others, we decided not to,” she said.

Mamata was disappointed that the Forward Bloc and the RSP, which had seen eye to eye with her over Nandigram and Singur, had not joined the front.

“We spoke to the Left Front partners and the SUCI. We are the principal Opposition party and have been fighting the CPM most consistently. It’s up to them when and how they would like to join hands with us,” she said.

The Party for Democratic Socialism, which worked with Mamata in the Save Farmland Committee, has yet to decide if it will join the front.

Asked what she thought of the anti-CPM front recently floated by Jamait Ulema-i-Hind leader Siddiqullah Chowdhury, Mamata said: “We are the real anti-CPM front. I don’t recognise any other front.”