Kolkata, April 4 – The CPI(M)'s brief alliance with Humayun Kabir's Aam Janata Unnayan Party was seen by many as undermining the Left's secular credentials.
Clarifying the CPI(M)'s awkward courtship attempt with Kabir's outfit, Left leader Md Salim said the one-on-one talks were aimed at understanding the state's emerging political dynamics to forge the broadest possible unity of like-minded groups against the TMC and BJP.
However, this seat-sharing discussion failed to materialize after the CPI(M) conveyed to Kabir its stance against "all forms of communal politics" as a precondition for further discussion. Salim, the Left party's West Bengal unit secretary, stated this.
Kabir, an MLA from Murshidabad's Bharatpur, who had previously aligned with the Congress and BJP, was expelled by the TMC in December last year following his initiative to build a Babri-style mosque in Beldanga.
With construction efforts underway amid considerable political tension, he launched AJUP and is contesting the assembly elections in alliance with Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM.
Salim's meeting with Kabir at a Kolkata hotel on January 28 raised eyebrows in West Bengal's political circles, many of whom interpreted the move as the CPI(M)'s desperate attempt to find a political foothold.
It also drew sharp criticism from Left Front partners and from within a section of the CPI(M), who argued that the collaboration would severely damage the Left's secular credentials.
"We had been in talks with various factions of the extreme Left, and multiple social, cultural, and political groups for the past two years," Salim said in an interview with
