Not averse to doing business with like-minded parties: Cong

Congress on Friday said it is not averse to doing business with like minded parties but made it clear that the arrangement with Left parties in West Bengal was only an electoral one. AICC also thanked TMC Chief Mamata Banerjee, who has won a second consecutive term as Chief Minister, for her "very welcome gesture" of inviting party chief Sonia Gandhi for the swearing-in ceremony. "She was part of our organisation earlier".

Party spokesman P C Chacko told reporters that like-minded parties come together in the national politics and in Parliament and "we do not think others as untouchables". Asked whether Congress would thank Left parties for the electoral understanding in West Bengal, which has helped the party to become the principal opposition at the cost of CPI-M, he said that Congress would thank the people of the state.

"No one has done charity. It is out of survival that alliances have been worked out. Congress cannot be written off even in West Bengal."

Chacko, who hails from Kerala, said there was "lurking fear" in the mind of Congress workers as also Communists in his home state that the electoral arrangement between the two sides in West Bengal would affect them but it did not happen.

The Congress spokesman also attacked Assam BJP leader Himant Biswa Sarma for targeting Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi and took a dig at BJP saying after leaving Congress, he has become a "saint" for BJP.

"No complaint now. He was summoned by CBI which interrogated him and also in the Louis Berger case where Sarma was an accused. After all these things, now the day he defected to BJP, all inquiries stopped. It is quite natural for him to put the blame," he added.