Alliance partners in WB: BJP yet to get one

Kolkata Jul 17: With an eye on the 2011 Assembly elections, the BJP today said it is working to build up an alternative alliance minus the CPI(M), Trinamool and the Congress.

"We are building up a non-CPI(M), non-Trinamool, non- Congress alliance in the state. We are hoping to have the alliance ready before the (Durga) Pujas," BJP state president Rahul Sinha said at the inauguration of the party's two-day 'Chintan Baithak' here.

A lot of work has progressed in North Bengal for cobbling up the alliance and the party will soon work on its alliance strategy in the South Bengal districts, he said.

Stating that a new space had been created for the BJP in West Bengal after the last Lok Sabha polls, Sinha claimed that a large number of CPI(M) activists and supporters were now coming to the BJP.

"After the CPI(M)'s poor show in the Lok Sabha and municipal polls, its rowdy elements are going to the Trinamool Congress hoping that the party will come to power. Old Trinamool hands are annoyed at this and they are also coming to the BJP," Sinha said.

Efforts will be made to take the alliance to the booth level and central leaders of the BJP will tour the rural areas of West Bengal to strengthen the alliance, Sinha said.

"A large number of people of the state are not liking either the CPI(M) or the Trinamool Congress. We want to tell the people that both the CPI(M) and the Trinamool are playing communal politics. Trinamool is also supporting the Maoists," he claimed.

Besides continuing its campaign against price rise, the BJP will also take up the issue of closure of factories and rising unemployment in the state and the infiltration problem in the North Bengal districts, Sinha said.

He said matters relating to the party's strategy for the state Assembly elections, electoral alliances and other organisational matters will be discussed in the two-day 'Chintan Baithak'.

BJP Mahila Morcha president Smriti Irani attended the afternoon session of the Baithak.

Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley will address the Baithak on its concluding day tomorrow, Sinha said.