A day after meeting CPIM and CPI leaders on the issue of withdrawing support to the Congress-led UPA Government, the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) said on Thursday that as an individual party it was ready to withdraw support. The Party is also pondering about boycotting UPA-Left coordination committee meetings.
"It is high time we withdrew support to the UPA government. We are trying to make other friends realise this and in this there are differences of opinion and perspective,'' senior leader TJ Chandrachoodan told reporters on Thursday. At the same time, he added that the four Left parties were like a family and RSP would like to have a consensus on the issue.
The Left front provides crucial outside support to UPA with 61 MPs in Lok Sabha. While CPIM has the major share with 45 MPs, CPI has 10 and RSP and Forward Bloc have three each. RSP has three MPs.
At the two-day Central Committee meeting of the party, several leaders demanded the withdrawal of the ``conditional support'' it had extended to the government to protest its ``anti-people policies'' and failure to fulfill commitments made in the `national common minimum programme'.
Chandrachoodan said the support extended by the Left to the UPA is "conditional'' and does not mean automatic support for the full five-year term.
{{/usCountry}}Chandrachoodan said the support extended by the Left to the UPA is "conditional'' and does not mean automatic support for the full five-year term.
{{/usCountry}}Senior RSP leaders including Abani Roy and General Secretary K Pankajakshan on had met CPI (M) leaders Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury and CPI's A B Bardhan and D Raja on Wednesday to convey their views on extending support to the government.
Email Sutirtho Patranobis: sutirthopatranobis@hindustantimes.com