A protest against the price hike in Calcutta. (PTI)

Calcutta, June 4: The Left Front’s call for a Bengal bandh tomorrow aims to kill two birds with one stone: distance it from the decision to raise oil prices and take the sting out of Mamata Banerjee’s strike a day later.

In meetings to review the recent rural polls, Left leaders had cited voters’ grievances against the Centre and the state’s failure to arrest price rise as two important reasons for their setback.

“We knew that the price hike was coming. The government didn’t heed the Left’s suggestion on the hike,’’ CPM state secretary and front chief Biman Bose said as he announced the bandh half an hour after the prices were raised, pre-empting Mamata who called a strike two hours later.

With an eye on Lok Sabha elections that are less than a year away, the Left is hoping the bandh will distance it from the price rise announced by a government it supports at the Centre.

But the Trinamul Congress chief is out to highlight the “Congress-CPM nexus” behind the hike.

Dubbing the Left’s bandh “cheap drama”, Mamata said: “The CPM is a party to the hike. If it is sincere in opposing the hike, why is it not withdrawing its support?”

Bose stressed the Left’s opposition to the Congress on economic issues but said they were “yet to discuss withdrawal of support” from the Centre.

“It’s up to the Congress (to decide) how long the government will continue. The responsibility lies with it since its economic policies, added with soaring prices, have had a cascading effect on the people.”

Asked why the strike was called in Bengal alone, Bose said “protests and strikes had begun across the country”.

Mamata demanded the “dismissal of the governments at the Centre and in the state”.

“The UPA has failed to frame a strategy to cope with the world oil price hike and the general price rise. It spent four years placating the CPM. The Congress lost the people’s trust by trusting the CPM.”

The warring CPM and Trinamul, however, will not disrupt each other’s bandhs.

“Ours is not a wildcat strike but part of a sustained agitation. People will judge if Trinamul’s bandh is adding to their trouble,” Bose said.

“We won’t disrupt the CPM’s bandh, but condemn it sitting at home since we, too, are protesting on the same issue,” Mamata said.