Left unity will not be hit due to Prez poll issue: CPI-M

The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Monday said that the Left unity would not be affected in anyway because of the Revolutionary Socialist Party and the Communist Party of India not supporting the candidature of United Progressive Alliance's Presidential nominee Pranab Mukherjee.

"Despite the RSP and the CPI having taken a different stand on the issue, the unity of the Left, particularly Left front, will not be affected in anyway," CPI-M leader and Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal Assembly Suryakanta Mishra told reporters.

Several members of the CPI-M, Forward Bloc, Samajwadi Party and DSP, which have extended support to Mukherjee's candidature, had a meeting with Mukherjee in the Assembly premises.

Mishra, however, said that supporting the United Progressive Alliance's Presidential candidate did not mean that the Left and the democratic movement against the Centre's "anti-people" policies, would be relaxed.

"The Left and the democratic movement do not depend in anyway on the issue of support to UPA's presidential candidate," he said.

To a question, he said that Mukherjee met MPs and MLAs of the CPI-M and Forward Bloc and MLAs of the DSP and Samajwadi Party and thanked them for extending support to him. "We also thanked him for meeting us," Mishra said.

On the Trinamool Congress-Congress tussle issue helping the CPI-M as well as the Left, Mishra said, "Such a difference has been brewing for a long time and we knew that any rainbow alliance will not be permanent. However, the CPI-M will not depend on what will happen to the ties between the Trinamool Congress and the Congress. We depend on our own strength and our own plans and programmes."