P R Dasmunsi tells voters to defeat CPI(M) in Panchayat polls

Kolkata, May 4(UNI) Calling upon the people to vote for the Trinamool Congress if no other opposition force was enough to take on the CPI(M) in the conming Pancyayat election, Union Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi today said his party would soon strive to build up a 'secular democratic front' in the state against the ruling Marxists.

"We are appealing to the people to vote in favour of the Congress.

Where the party does not have a candidate, the vote should go to the independent. But wherever both Congress and independent are absent, we are asking people to put a blind folded stamp in favour of the Trinamool Congress," he said at a meet the press programme here.

Even though the Congress is officially averse to forging any alliance with the Trinamool Congress because of its track with the BJP-led NDA, Mr Dasmunshi, who is also the president of West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee, claimed that a ground level understanding had been reached among the opposition supporters in most of the places of the state in a bid to defeat the CPI(M).

"We are not going to oppose this understanding at the lower level," he said.

Alleging that the CPI(M) had perpetuated a reign of terror in Bengal throughout the year, Mr Dasmunsi said the Congress would take initiative to form a secular democratic front to provide the people an alternative to the ruling Marxists after May 18, the last phase of the Panchayat election.

"We shall be failing in our duty as long as we are not able to provide to the people a secular democratic front," he said.

However, in reply to a question on the adverse remark of Ms. Mamata Banerjee on Congress-CPI(M) relation at the Centre and the effort to build up a seuclar front in West Bengal, Mr Dasmunsi took a potshot at the Trinamool supremo.

"There are many who could not comprehend what really scularism means unless their tenure is over," he said.

UNI KDG PC RN1707