The Communist Party of India will go in for State-specific alliances and seat adjustments with regional, secular democratic parties for the Assembly elections in Rajasthan, Delhi, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, and for the Lok Sabha elections due next year.
CPI general secretary S. Sudhakar Reddy told journalists here on Saturday that the party had already forged an alliance in Rajasthan with the CPI(M), the Samajwadi Party and the Janata Dal (Secular). In Chhattisgarh, talks reached an advanced stage for forming a front of the Left parties and some State parties.
The national executive, which met earlier this week, discussed preparations for the Assembly elections. “It expressed satisfaction with the work done so far in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, where alliances have been worked out, and asked the other two States to hasten identification of constituencies to be contested by the party as well as seat adjustment with other parties,” Mr. Reddy said.
The meeting also discussed the Lok Sabha polls and decided to work on tactics to “forge a programme-based alternative that can pave the way for the installation of a non-UPA and non-NDA government.” The party was confident that a combination of non-Congress and non-BJP parties would form a government at the Centre, he said, and a post-poll alliance should be forged on the basis of secularism, federalism, food security, tribal rights and an alternative economic policy.
Rejecting the Chief Information Commissioner’s order that political parties come under the purview of the Right to Information Act, Mr. Reddy said the parties were accountable to the people from whom they received funds. “We believe the process of receiving funds should be transparent, and the name of the donors should be made public.”
As for the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that barred persons in jail from voting and contesting in elections, Mr. Reddy said that it was important to prevent criminalisation of politics, but snatching away the right of the people to vote and contest when they were in jail was not right because it could be used as a weapon against political opponents. “Even a mere accusation can result in arrest,” he said.
On Telangana, he said the Centre should take all parties into confidence while creating the new State from Andhra Pradesh, and a committee, composed of representatives of Telangana and the rest of Andhra Pradesh, should be formed to facilitate the process. “The way the UPA government has handled the just demand for Telangana has not only sparked dissatisfaction and anger in Seemandhra but also given a fillip to demands [for smaller States] in other parts of the country.”
