By IANS,
Kolkata : West Bengal’s ruling Left Front (LF) at its meeting Wednesday skirted the controversial issue of its debacle in the civic polls and said it would be discussed only after all its nine constituents review the results independently.
The Left Front would discuss its civic poll performance at its next meeting after receiving the report from the partners, Front chairman Biman Bose said.
“This meeting was basically called to zero in on the issues on which we will launch political struggles in the coming days,” Bose told reporters after the LF meeting.
He said the LF leadership would hold a meeting with state ministers June 19 to discuss coordination with the government and development issues.
According to Bose, none of the partners at the meeting raised the issue of advancing the assembly polls, due next year.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) led LF, which has been continuously in power in the state since 1977, was routed in the May 30 civic polls.
After the results were declared June 2, two LF constituents, Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and Samajwadi Party, blamed corruption and “wrong polices” of the state government for the drubbing.
Samajwadi Party leader and state Fisheries Minister Kiranmoy Nanda held a press conference Tuesday to say that the LF should be prepared to sit in the opposition after next year’s assembly polls.
He also slammed the CPI-M for its “big brotherly” attitude towards its smaller allies.
According to Bose, however, Nanda did not raise any such issue at Wednesday’s meeting.
The orward Bloc, the second largest LF constituent after the CPI-M, has also blamed the industrial and agricultural polices of the government for the erosion of its support base.
Forward Bloc state general secretary Ashok Ghosh said Monday there were chances of the state assembly polls being brought ahead to November if the poll panel so wanted.
The LF faces its toughest assembly test in 2011 after its back-to-back defeats in Lok Sabha elections, assembly by-polls and the civic elections since last year.