The Communist Party of India(Marxist) on Friday said the Kerala and West Bengal Assembly elections were significant as the Left was the strongest in these States.
“We hope to break the pattern in Kerala and maintain it in West Bengal,” CPI (M) general secretary Prakash Karat said at an interaction at the Press Club of India here.
Referring to Kerala, he said empirical evidence suggested that there had been a change of government every five years and the party was concentrating on breaking this pattern. Asked about West Bengal, where the Left Front had won successive elections since 1977, he said: “We hope to maintain it.”
However, he said, it was too early to come to any conclusion. The first assessment of the situation in Kerala should be available by month-end, while in West Bengal, it would take time since polling in the State was spread over phases.
On new faces
Explaining the rationale behind fielding several new faces and not including some Ministers in West Bengal, Mr. Karat said the broad rule was that those who had had two terms in the Assembly would not be put up again. Exceptions were made in the case of Chief Ministers Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and V.S. Achuthanandan, taking into account their experience in running the government in West Bengal and Kerala.
Asked about the Achuthanandan episode and the role of the Polit Bureau in ensuring that the Chief Minister is fielded, Mr. Karat said that after the developments in 2006, when the then Polit Bureau members' decision not to contest led to a problem, the party resolved that the State Committee should take a decision on candidates and refer it to the Polit Bureau for approval.
Dispelling an impression, Mr. Karat said he, along with Polit Bureau member S. Ramachandran Pillai, attended the Kerala State Committee meeting to listen, and not to convey any opinion.
On national issues, he said the CPI(M) along with other parties would work to set up a committee consisting of political leaders, scientists, etc, in support of the people of Jaitapur in Maharashtra who are protesting the location of nuclear power plants in the area.
After what happened in Fukushima, Japan, “it is important that the country looks at the implementation of the civil nuclear agreement [with the U.S.] and the consequences of going in for large nuclear parks,” Mr. Karat said.
“The people of the area are concerned that their livelihood would be affected and the discharge from the Jaitapur plant would spell doom for fishermen. The other question that remains unanswered is what would be done with spent fuel.”
