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Only a joint campaign on issues: Yechury

Karnataka Bureau

Bangalore: Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury said on Saturday that there were no immediate plans to form a “third front.”

He told journalists here that the coming together of non-Congress and non-BJP parties, including the Left, was no more than “a joint campaign on five issues.”

At a separate press conference here, CPI leader D. Raja said the political situation had changed significantly since the trust vote and “a realignment of political forces is happening.” Mr. Raja called on the former Prime Minister and JD (S) president H.D. Deve Gowda.

Mr. Yechury said “it is not a front which would amount to a cut-and-paste job of parties.” The issues of price rise, agricultural distress, communalisation, India-U.S. nuclear deal and alleged misuse of the Central Bureau of Investigation and other agencies by the government for political gains would be taken up in the joint campaign.

Mr. Raja said the Left parties, the Bahujan Samaj Party, the United National Progressive Alliance, the JD(S) and other parties were conducting agitations against the government.

Mr. Raja said the results of the confidence vote “clearly showed that Parliament is divided on the India-U.S. nuclear deal.” He said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh “must take the vote as an indication and not proceed with the nuclear deal.” He said: “The government may have won the vote, but it has lost the trust of the people.”

Mr. Yechury described the nuclear agreement as “a deal between a lame-duck administration in the U.S. and a minority government in India.”

Mr. Raja said the Left’s opposition to the Congress was not only confined to the nuclear deal. “There were several other major issues, the nuclear deal was only the last straw on the camel’s back as far as we are concerned.”

Asked whether the Left parties had not created new opportunities for the Bharatiya Janata Party, Mr. Raja said his party did not believe that the Indian polity was “bipolar.”

“How else can I explain the cross-voting by BJP MPs on July 22?”

Mr. Raja said the government was likely to push ahead with its reforms agenda now that it did not depend on the Left support. In particular, the government would attempt to move ahead on legislative changes in banking, insurance, labour laws and in pension reforms.

It might also attempt disinvestment in public sector undertakings and allow foreign direct investment in retailing. “On all these issues the Left parties had acted as a countervailing force.”

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