The electoral success of Trinamool Congress in West Bengal has put a question mark on the very existence of the CPI(M), a key party leader said today and scoffed at the Left party's strategy to cobble together a Third Front before the Lok Sabha elections next year.
"Where ever there is CPI(M) they will spoil everything. They should first try to manage their own party before trying to organise a front," TMC secretary-general Partha Chatterjee told a press conference here.
He was commenting on a mega rally in New Delhi where Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav and Left leaders including CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat shared a stage fuelling speculation of a Third Front.
"They have lost credibility in West Bengal. They have lost relevance," he said.
Chatterjee, who is state industry minister, said CPI(M)'s own party leader and former minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah had once commented that his top party leadership were eyeing for the sky without having its feet on the ground.
Asked whether party supremo Mamata Banerjee who had earlier pitched for a Federal Front would strive to unite the anti-Congress and anti-BJP forces, Chatterjee said "We do not discuss our strategy in the press."
TMC's Rajya Sabha MP Derek O' Brien said it was an anti-communal rally in Delhi and it was premature to assume that a 'Third Front' was in the making.
"People have made the CPI(M) irrelevant and that it why it is desperately trying to remain relevant," O'Brien said.
TMC general secretary Mukul Roy said, "Let the CPI(M) win more than a dozen seats first in the next Lok Sabha elections.
