Referring to a rejoinder published in the CPM mouthpiece People’s Democracy recently, accusing him of levelling baseless charges against the party, Chatterjee said he was “amazed at the deliberate distortion of facts.”

Lambasting the party leadership for its “abysmal failure” and “splendid isolation” from the people, Chatterjee said in a statement on Saturday that the “desperate and comic attempt” to form a Third Front of heterogeneous outfits before the last Lok Sabha elections failed to draw support even from “die-hard” partymen.

The CPM gave “ridiculous assurance to its members that it would come to power and would provide opportunity to the party’s general secretary (Prakash  Karat) even to head such a government. “I get the impression that in its anxiety to justify its unfathomable decision which has brought the party to its present sorry state, the CPM has made a desperate effort to indulge in character assassination.”

Chatterjee denied having ever stated that “the Left had some foreknowledge that the ‘cash-for-vote’ row during the trust motion would come up in Parliament nor had I insinuated that there was some co-ordination between BJP and the Left in this matter.”