"It's (withdrawal of support) a demand being placed from sections of the CPM Talibans in Delhi."

Bengal CPM's differences with politburo out in the open

KOLKATA: Differences between the Bengal CPM and party bosses in Delhi over withdrawing support to the UPA government came out in the open on Sunday with two politburo members MK Pandhe and Biman Bose strongly differing on the consequences for the government if it went ahead with the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Hours after Pandhe, the Citu general secretary, said in Kolkata that his party would withdraw support if Congress went ahead with negotiations with the IAEA, his colleague and West Bengal party boss Biman Bose told the CPM state committee meeting that Pandhe's comments were not in tune with the understanding of the CPM politburo or the central committee.

Pandhe had said: "If they (the Congress) decide to go ahead with negotiations, we won't hesitate to pull the plug. This is a unanimous decision of the politburo and the central committee. Our central committee will take stock of the situation in its meeting from September 29. We have empowered the politburo to take a decision if anything happens in between." Asked how CPM would fare in the event of a snap poll, Pandhe said: "We may lose some, we may gain some seats. What is of supreme importance to us is the fact that we can't allow our country to become a strategic partner of the US."

Bose, however, struck a completely different note. He told state committee members there was no reason to worry about snap polls and that the politburo was only keeping a watch on the situation. Off the record, CPM's Bengal stalwarts who've kept the party flag flying in the state for 30 years spewed venom on Prakash Karat's hardline. One senior central committee member and MP, who spoke on condition of anonymity to TOI, called Karat's pullout threat a "Talibani stand". His words: "It's (withdrawal of support) a demand being placed from sections of the CPM Talibans in Delhi."