No mid-term polls: Prakash Karat

The country would not have to face mid-term polls in the immediate future, CPM general secretary Prakash Karat said on Friday, reports Tanmay Chatterjee.

The country would not have to face mid-term polls in the immediate future, CPM general secretary Prakash Karat said on Friday, clarifying at the same time that the Left parties don’t want the UPA government to go to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for further talks on the India-US N-deal.

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Although senior CPM leaders, including Karat, had softened their stand on the nuclear deal over the past month, this was the first time the party officially ruled out interim polls without mincing words. “Nobody is talking of elections”, said Karat referring to Left parties as well as Congress. He also ruled out formation of a Third Front as an alternative to the Congress-led government. “We will continue to work for a third alternative that will be distinct from the Congress and the BJP. As such there is no third front being created. This is not an electoral compulsion now”.

Party patriarch Jyoti Basu also insisted that talks with DMK and other regional forces took place at “individual levels only”. “We want this government to continue”, Basu said after a meeting of the CPM state secretariat at Alimuddin Street.

“The UPA-Left joint committee will also meet on November 16,” Karat said.