Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechuri has asked his partymen in Kerala not to adopt an insular stand on political tactical line of the party at the national level.
Mr. Yechuri, who had come under some sharp attack from some of the delegates to the ongoing CPI(M) State conference here, said the accusation that he had spoken in favour of an alliance with the Congress on the opening day of the conference was completely misplaced as his speech was based entirely on the draft political resolution adopted by the party Central Committee meeting last month at Kolkata which clearly stated that appropriate political tactical line would be adopted to pool all anti-BJP votes in the coming elections.
The CPI(M) had never sought to come to power at the national level using short cuts. This would be clear if anyone studied the party programme. The party had backed the first UPA government from outside based on this principle and had earlier chosen to forego that eas its for the asking based on the same principle. Those who accused him of having advocated an alliance with the Congress would do well to read the Party Programme once again, Mr. Yechuri said.
He reminded the delegates that the key challenges before the party was to fight the surrender of the country's economic interests to global finance capital, the rightward shift in global politics which was manifesting in India as the shift towards right wing communalism, the threats to the Indian secular democratic republic and offensive against the religious minorities and the Dalits. The task before the Left was to unite the most exploited classes in society to fight the forces of right wing communalism. 'Without weakening and defeating communalism, we cannot advance," he told the delegates.
To the criticism that he had not tounched upon international issues in his inaugural address, Mr. Yechuri retorted that the party general secretary's report could not be a substitute for 'a Google search'. He said his concern was the immediate task before the party, which was to defeat the BJP. The draft political resolution adopted by the party Central Committee was before every party memeber and they could express their views on each point contained in it, he said quoting relevant portions of the resolution.
Ministers come under fire
Earlier, the discussion on the report saw several Ministers in the Pinarayi Vijayan Cabinet coming under fire. While some of the delegates found Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac's initial enthusiastic endorsement of the Goods and Service Tax (GST) highly misplaced, others were critical of Health Minister K.K.Shylaja, Ports Minister Ramachandran Kadannappalli of the Congress (S) and the personal staff of many party Ministers. On Friday, many had come down heavily on the CPI Ministers accusing them of gross ineptitude.
