Singur, (The Telegraph): Not once but thrice Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee asked the Congress today: " Apnara kon dikey? Apnara kon dikey? Ei loraitey, apnara kon dikey?"

Rarely has a Marxist asked the Congress such a blunt question in such dramatic flourish: "Which side are you on? Which side are you on? In this battle, which side are you on?"

The question was in the making for some time in Bengal politics, and the former chief minister articulated it in the loudest manner possible at a venue chosen carefully to telegraph a multi-layered message.

Bhattacharjee was speaking at Singur, the graveyard of not only his regime but also the resurgence of hope in Bengal.

Before asking the Congress where it stood, Bhattacharjee resurrected the Left's 2006 motto of " Krishi amader bhitti, shilpo amader bhobishyot (agriculture is our foundation, industry our future)."

He underscored the importance of industrialisation, referred to the prevailing "darkness", "the hell" that Bengal has become and underscored the "dire need" to defeat the Trinamul Congress in the upcoming elections.

Then, Bhattacharjee sprang the question on the Congress, pitching the thinly veiled solicitation for handshake as the panacea to the condition he had diagnosed Bengal with.

Bhattacharjee told the audience of over 1.5 lakh: " Trinamul-er biruddhey shobaikey darantey hobey. Amra Congress-keo bolchhi. Amra toh boleyichhi. Amra Congresske bolchhi, apnara kon dikey? Apnara kon dikey? Ei loraitey apnara kon dikey (Everyone has to stand up to the Trinamul. We are telling everyone. We are now asking the Congress too. We have said what we had to say. We now ask the Congress, which side are you on? Which side are you on? In this battle, which side are you on?)"

The question marked the first public statement from Bhattacharjee on the willingness for an understanding with the Congress.

Initially, he is said to have harboured reservations against any truck but feedback that suggested a groundswell among the cadres in favour of some form of an alliance appears to have left him with little option but to cross the Rubicon.

On his first visit to Singur after the election debacle in 2011, Bhattacharjee said: "I gave it a lot of thought, actually, whether I should come here. In the end, I decided that it was necessary. I had to come here now, stand before you now and tell you a few things that are very, very important. It is the right time."

At one point, he said: "If the factory had come up here, the future would have been different for the state. But from Singur to Salboni, none of it materialised.... Only darkness prevailed, only the silence of a crematorium.... When they (Trinamul) go, the darkness will subside and there will be a renewed drive for industry."

Cheers erupted at the venue, separated from the abandoned Nano plant by National Highway 2 - which were clutched at by some CPM leaders to suggest that Bhattacharjee has struck a chord with his industrial "crematorium" theme. They also contrasted it with the cheers Mamata Banerjee had evoked when she was leading the protest against the plant years ago. More than the sound of cheers, hard numbers suggest that a Left-Congress understanding can make some difference - at least on paper. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Trinamul secured 39.3 per cent of the votes, the Left 29.5 per cent and the Congress 9.6 per cent.

Photo credit: The Telegraph
When the issue became the talking point on the sidelines of the recent CPM plenum, central leaders said the state committee would have to take a decision and forward it to the politburo. Bhattacharjee's statement suggests the Bengal unit of the party is unequivocal on its stand on an alliance with the Congress.

"Besides, it looks like some preliminary parleys with the Congress may have taken place.... Otherwise, people like Buddhada or Surjyada (state secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra who had also put the ball in the Congress court earlier) would not have spoken in public," said a CPM leader.

Bhattacharjee, along with Left Front chairman Biman Bose, Citu president Shyamal Chakraborty - who called Mamata "a scarecrow for industry" - and other front leaders, flagged off a six-day march from Singur to Salboni under the banner of the Bengal Platform of Mass Organisations.

C.P. Joshi, the Congress general secretary in charge of Bengal, told PTI: "We respect their views.... Such decisions can't be taken in a haste. We are in the process of taking opinions of vast sections of Congress workers and leaders."

Responding to Bhattacharjee's statement, Trinamul secretary-general Partha Chatterjee said: "They underestimate the good sense of the common people."