A day after the RSP joined the CPI in demanding that the Left should consider withdrawing support from the UPA government, CPI(M) veteran Jyoti Basu said on Friday that the Centre was deviating from the Common Minimum Programme and his party would raise the issue in the Parliament.
“We have been saying repeatedly that the Centre is not following the CMP. We will raise the matter in Parliament so that people know what the real situation is and how our stand is different from the Centre,” Basu told newsmen after emerging from his party's state committee meeting.
With the CPI and the RSP pressing for withdrawal of support from the Centre and the Forward Bloc becoming increasingly critical of the UPA government’s “anti-people’ policies, CPI(M) is being seen as the only party among the Left which is helping the survival of the Congress-led government. Basu’s statement is being seen as a damage control exercise to save it from finding itself isolated in Left circles.
Asked about the CPI’s reported warning to the Centre not to take its support for granted, Basu, a member of the CPI(M) politburo, said, "I have seen it in the papers. But the matter had not been discussed in our party, nor was it discussed in the politburo.”