New Delhi: The rift within the Congress party has seemingly widened after senior leader and Rajya Sabha MP Anand Sharma sought justification from Adhir Ranjan Choudhary — Sharma's colleague and Congress chief in West Bengal — over the party's alliance with the Indian Secular Front (ISF) in the poll-bound state.
Taking to Twitter, Anand Sharma called the decision "against the core ideology of the Congress party," while asserting that such matters should be 'approved' by the Congress Working Committee, which is the highest decision making body in the party.
He tweeted, "Congress' alliance with parties like ISF and other such forces militates against the core ideology of the party and Gandhian and Nehruvian secularism, which forms the soul of the party. These issues need to be approved by the CWC."
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The former Union Minister also suggested that Congress cannot be selective in fighting communalists but just do so in all its manifestations, irrespective of religion and colour.
"The presence and endorsement West Bengal PCC President is painful and shameful, he (Adhir Ranjan Choudhary) must clarify," Sharma said.
The ISF, a barely 40-days old party, has been accused of being fundamentalist in nature. However, the cracks between the alliance of Congress-left-ISF came to the fore when ISF's Abbas Siddiqui asked his supporters to vote for Left candidates without any mention of the Congress party.
It is due to the seat-sharing issue as the Left offered 30 seats to ISF, while Congress hasn't taken any decision yet.
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When asked about the matter of Anand Sharma's tweets, Congress leader Chowdhary said, "We are in charge of a state and don't take any decision on our own, without any permission."
Joining the Left and Congress leaders at the dais was Abbas Siddique of the iconic Furfura Shareef and founder of the Indian Secular Front (ISF), a recent member of the opposition alliance in the state.
This comes just after a group of Congress dissenters, including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Kapil Sibal, launched a scathing attack on Congress' leadership during a public meeting in Jammu.
(With PTI inputs)
