NEW DELHI: Rivalries between political parties can't get more bizarre than this. A leader of the Trinamool Congress, a party that rules the Eastern Indian State of Bengal, as well as supports the Congress led government in the centre, has asked his party men not to marry members of their rival party the Congress Party of India (Marxist). The diktat even asks them to avoid ‘small talk' with members of that party. “Don't mingle with CPI-M workers. Don't talk to them. Don't establish any marriage relation with CPI-M cadre,” Jyotipriya Mallick, who is the food and supplies minister in the West Bengal government, said. “We cannot fight the CPI-M all out if we keep any relation with them,” he added. The Trinamool Congress is gearing up for the panchayat (village council) polls that are due next year and hopes to continue to ride on the anti-communist wave that had brought them to power in the state. “Don't gossip with them even at tea stalls,” Mallick said adding that unless there is an all-out war there cannot be an only official battle. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the CPI (M) said Mallick's diktats were “unfortunate, atrocious and ridiculous.” “Democratic values are at stake because intolerance is being promoted by the highest authorities,” CPI (M) leader Md Salim said. Salim was also referring to the case where a college lecturer was arrested for drawing and circulating a cartoon that portrayed the Trinamool Congress and its party leaders in a poor light. He said that the ruling party is developing and promoting enmity between people which was not compatible with the cultural ethos of the region of Bengal. Bengal has seen protest over what people see as a infringement on their right to freely express.
