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Sunday, May 10, 2009
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Karat says onus is on Congress to decide

Staff Reporter

Whether it will support the Third Front government

Prakash Karat

KOLKATA: Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat said here on Saturday that contrary to the Congress’ expectation that the Left Front would support its government post-election, the onus will be on the Congress to decide whether to support “an alternative secular non-Congress government” or not.

Addressing an election rally at Ekbalpore in the Kolkata Dakshin constituency, Mr. Karat said: “The Congress has realised that they cannot form a government without the Left Front’s support. We had supported them in 2004 but in 2009, it is the Congress who has to decide whether it will support an alternative secular non-Congress government or not.” Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee is taking on Rabin Deb of CPI(M) here.

Dismissing any chance of the Bharatiya Janata Party forming a government after the formation of the Third Front, he said that the BJP had no partners in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Orissa, where the Left Front has found strong partners in the Telugu Desam Party, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Biju Janata Dal respectively.

Mr. Karat also criticised the idea of the United Progressive Alliance. “The Prime Minister says that a Third Front government is not possible. What is left in the UPA? Look at Bihar where Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan are fighting against the Congress... Same situation is in Uttar Pradesh where Mulayam Singh Yadav, once a friend of the Congress, is contesting against it in all the seats.”

Earlier, in another programme organised by the Shree Calcutta Gujarati Samaj, he stressed on the importance of regional parties in current political scenario.

“A two-party system is not possible in a diverse country like India... To maintain democracy, it cannot be highly centralised and in a multi-party system regional parties have an important role. The topic whether regional parties are good or bad is irrelevant. Not all regional parties are bad and it is not correct to criticise all,” Mr. Karat said.

The aim of the Third Front was to integrate such regional parties on one platform to form a non-Congress and non-BJP government and formulate alternative policies in economic, social and foreign spheres.

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