Karat in Calcutta. Telegraph picture

Calcutta, Feb. 6: CPM general secretary Prakash Karat today stopped short of offering an olive branch to the Congress. But he drew a distinction between his erstwhile UPA ally and current chief tormentor Trinamul Congress, seven months after their alliance had dealt a crushing blow to the Left in the Lok Sabha elections.

At the end of a three-day session of the CPM central committee here, Karat echoed his Bengal comrades who have already made Trinamul their main enemy and tried to drive a wedge into its alliance with the Congress.

Referring to the political violence in the state, particularly the attack on CPM workers, Karat said: “It is Trinamul which is spearheading the violence in the state. The most dangerous thing is that Trinamul is having a nexus with the Maoists, shielding them, which is contrary to the Centre’s declared policy to counter the Maoist violence.’’

Karat not only highlighted the mismatch between Trinamul’s and the Congress-led Centre’s positions on the Maoists but also focused on the contradictions between the two allies on economic issues, particularly development in Bengal.

“On economic and development projects, Trinamul is taking an obstructionist position which the central government normally cannot afford to take on political considerations. It is for the Congress to decide how far it will go along with such allies,’’ he added.

Karat parried the question whether the CPM and its allies would support a Congress-led government in case of a divorce with Trinamul, the second-largest UPA partner. “We don’t discuss something hypothetically. We can’t speculate.’’

But he indicated a shift in the CPM’s mood by admitting that the political situation had changed after the Lok Sabha polls last year.

The CPM and its allies had severed ties with the Congress over the US nuclear deal before the parliamentary polls, a decision pushed by Karat and opposed by a section of the Bengal leadership.

The CPM’s central committee will hold an extended session in August to “decide the political-tactical line” before the Assembly elections in Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Assam in May next year.

By August, the CPM’s ability to make an electoral turnaround will have been tested in elections to 82 civic bodies in Bengal, which are collectively being seen as the “semi-final” before the big battle of 2011.

Karat said the central committee had decided to defer the party congress, due in early 2011, and hold it after the “crucial” polls in Bengal and Kerala. Later, Sitaram Yechury said the congress would be held in early 2012.

A section of the party leadership wanted to hold the party congress before the polls but the Bengal unit was opposed to it because of its preoccupation with the civic and Assembly polls. The congress is the highest forum that reviews and finalises the party’s political line for three years and many heads may roll in its next session if the party loses power in Bengal and Kerala.

The Bengal unit has also ruled out early Assembly polls, hoping that the “contradictions” in the Trinamul-Congress alliance will “ripen” in the intervening year.

The CPM is hoping to cash in on the soaring food prices to step up its campaign against the Centre and the Congress-Trinamul alliance.

The Bengal Left Front will train its guns on the Centre over the price rise at a rally at Brigade tomorrow. Another will be held on March 12 in Delhi.

The central committee has formally welcomed the Ranganath Misra commission’s recommendations to provide reservation for minorities in government jobs. But the party did not spell out its position on the details of the panel’s recommendation, leaving it to the Centre to move first on its implementation.

Karat said the central committee had only agreed to the panel’s suggestion to cover within reservations the “economically and educationally backward among Muslims and others”.

Karat said the Left Front government in Bengal would take steps to provide reservation for Muslims, possibly by expanding the list of the Other Backward Classes in the state.