The CPI(M) would not enter into alliances to offer an alternative to the BJP or the Congress at the Centre but would concentrate on bringing together the Left outfits, the party said Wednesday.
The tactical shift comes on the day six offshoots of the erstwhile Janata Parivar announced a merger, with Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav as the leader.
Yadav is a former Communist Party of India (Marxist) ally and the two sides often flirted with the idea of the “third front”— an anti-BJP, Congress formulation.
“The line of rallying regional bourgeois parties at the national level has proved unrealistic and erroneous,” said the party’s draft review report on the political tactical line presented on Day 2 of the Party Congress. The six-day national meet in being held in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.
The party’s outgoing leader Prakash Karat told the media in the evening that regional parties with their policies and programmes couldn’t be an alternative to the Congress or the BJP. “There will not be any national-level alliance with them (regional parties),” he said.
The party had to strengthen base in the states and couldn’t depend on alliance partners for it, a party leader said over the phone from Visakhapatnam.
{{/usCountry}}The party had to strengthen base in the states and couldn’t depend on alliance partners for it, a party leader said over the phone from Visakhapatnam.
{{/usCountry}}“We can’t be seen with the SP, BSP [Bahujan Samaj Party] and other parties, as we have to offer a platform of alternative politics,” the leader said.
The Left has fought elections in alliance with parties such as the AIADMK, BJD, SP and RJD. The CPM also had a tacit understanding with the Congress which didn’t field candidates where the Left party held sway. In fact, the CPM supported the first Congress led-UPA government from outside.
Arvind Kejriwal’s success in Delhi seems to have inspired the party which said it was willing to work with NGOs and civil society groups.
It may be moving away from poll pacts, but the CPM favours a broad-based movement against the BJP and its ideological parent, the RSS.
At the meet on Wednesday, Politburo member Sitaram Yechury demanded a special Parliament session to mark the 125th birth anniversary of BR Ambedkar. The session should highlight the need for measures to eliminate “birth-based inequality”, a party resolution said.