Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma on Monday questioned the party’s alliance with newly formed Indian Secular Front, led by Pirzada Abbas Siddiqui, for the upcoming Assembly elections in West Bengal.
Siddique, the cleric of Hooghly district’s prominent medieval shrine Furfura Shareef, shared the stage with the Left Front and Congress leaders on Sunday at a historic joint rally in Kolkata. Siddique is considered to have great influence on Muslims in south Bengal, but his party has earned the reputation of being a fundamentalist group due to the controversial comments made by Siddique in his religious speeches, according to The Wire.
Sharma, who is one of the dissenting Congress leaders, or the “G-23”, opposed the alliance with the Indian Secular Front. “Congress’ alliance with parties like ISF and other such forces militates against the core ideology of the party and Gandhian and Nehruvian secularism, which forms the soul of the party,” he tweeted. “These…