Piggyback on left: The rare sight of BJP flags flying high on a bandh-emptied Howrah Bridge on Monday. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

New Delhi, July 5: Just when the CPM was spooning out a strong dose of bandh to rejuvenate listless comrades, L.K. Advani spilled a sticky secret on his blog.

Advani disclosed that two Left leaders — the CPM’s Basudeb Acharya and the CPI’s Gurudas Dasgupta — had ended years of “self-imposed embargo” on the BJP and visited leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj’s office in Parliament during the last budget session.

The disclosure, which came on the eve of the bandh the BJP and the Left had called separately, made the CPM’s task of distancing itself from the other party’s shutdown all the more difficult.

Perceptions of any understanding between the Left and the BJP are expected to have telling consequences in Bengal, where the CPM is already fighting with its back to the wall and any further minority alienation will be a body blow.

Smelling blood, Mamata Banerjee today seized the chance to turn the tables on the Left. “The CPM is very much with the communal BJP everywhere in the country. They are two flowers on the same stalk,” she said. ( )

Realising the danger, the Left parties mounted strenuous efforts to deny any “co-ordination” with the “communal” BJP. But Advani’s disclosure and an indirect plea to the Left to end the political untouchability of the BJP have forced the CPM on the back foot.

Contacted, CPI leader Dasgupta appeared cut up with Advani for having made a private meeting public. “If a leader of Advani’s stature has written about it, then I don’t want to react to it,” Dasgupta said.

Prodded, he betrayed his discomfiture at the Left being seen as closer to the BJP but defended his position. “I do not believe in political untouchability. I believe in fruitful co-operation. Acting simultaneously, however, does not mean coming together politically. Our differences with the BJP will always remain,” Dasgupta told The Telegraph.

Advani in his blog had quoted Dasgupta as having said: “Advaniji, today we have for the first time entered ‘forbidden territory’!”

Advani went on to put on record how he had smiled and said: “For us, there has never been any taboo. You have always been welcome to this ‘forbidden’ territory. It has been your own self-imposed embargo.”

Unlike Dasgupta, who welcomed “fruitful co-operation” with the BJP, the CPM’s Acharya appeared rattled at the idea. “We have decided not to have any floor co-ordination with the BJP. The meeting Advani has written about, too, did not have anything to do with co-ordination with the BJP,” he said.

Advani’s disclosure has come at a time the CPM finds itself at the crossroads of pursuing a vigorous anti-Congress political agenda and buffering itself from the danger of being seen as closer to the “communal” BJP.

Left leaders today took credit for the “successful” bandh but sources in the CPM privately agreed that the impact would not have been so much had the BJP not participated in it. “It’s a fact that without the BJP, the bandh would have been visible only in Left-ruled states. It became an all-India success because the BJP-ruled states took part in it,” a CPM leader conceded.

At the same time, CPM leaders counted the cost of being seen alongside the BJP ahead of the Bengal Assembly polls where the minority community would play a decisive role.

At the politburo meeting yesterday, the CPM central leadership had endorsed the political line of pursuing an anti-Congress agenda that did not go down well with members from Bengal.

Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and another politburo member from Bengal were learnt to have criticised party general secretary Prakash Karat for withdrawing support to UPA I and pursuing the failed third front experiment.

Sources said the leaders underscored that although withdrawing support to UPA I was “ideologically” correct, “politically and tactically” it was a blunder as the party suffered losses among the people.

The Bengal leaders are worried that more co-ordination between the Left and the BJP would be seen over the fuel price hike and the civil nuclear liability bill during the monsoon session. The issue could spark fireworks during the extended central committee meeting of the CPM in the first week of August.