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CPI-M agreed to make Basu PM, but Congress refused to extend support: Chatterjee

Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Somnath Chatterjee said last night that his party's Politburo had agreed to make West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu prime minister if the Congress extended support to the government from the outside.

''...When everybody except the BJP has been asking whether Jyoti Basu could be the prime minister, even my party today said yes. If the Congress cannot form the government but extends support from the outside, Mr Jyoti Basu can be put forward as an alternative. As a matter of fact that was the decision of the Politburo,'' Chatterjee told Star News Sunday.

Chatterjee's revelation came hours after the Politburo turned down the proposal to form a Third Front government with Basu as prime minister. CPI-M General Secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet said on Sunday afternoon that the proposal -- of asking Basu to head a Third Front government -- was unrealistic and urged the Congress to soften its stand and go in for a coalition to prevent the BJP from staging a comeback.

Surjeet had said he could not see the possibility of a government under Basu as the numbers did not add up. ''I do not know how a government can be formed without the Congress,'' he said, adding that the Congress had not requested the CPI-M to form a government.

Asked by Star News Sunday anchor Rajdeep Sardesai whether the Congress had let the CPI-M down, Chatterjee, the CPI-M leader in the Lok Sabha, clarified: ''The Congress, we do not know why they ultimately said they will not support any party.''

Additional reportage: UNI

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