The CPI(M) State unit on Tuesday constituted a three-member committee to hold talks with the AIADMK leadership and other Left parties for seats sharing for the Assembly elections.
State secretary of the party G. Ramakrishnan, central committee member T.K.Rangarajan and State secretariat member K. Balakrishnan are the members of the committee.
A two-day meeting of the State committee adopted a resolution in this regard and general secretary of the party Prakash Karat immediately called on AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa and conveyed the decision.
“Our State committee has decided to have an electoral understanding with the AIADMK and I conveyed that to her,” Mr. Karat told reporters outside Ms. Jayalalithaa's Poes Garden residence.
Mr. Karat who had an hour-long discussion with Ms. Jayalalithaa said he had invited her to take part in the protest organised by nine parties in Delhi against price rise in February. Asked whether she would participate in the protest, he said, “I have requested her and she will take a decision.”
Mr. Ramakrishnan said the electoral understanding was the culmination of joint-struggles the CPI (M) organised along with other Left parties and the AIADMK against the anti-people policies of the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre and the DMK government in Tamil Nadu.
“We are coming to an understanding with the AIADMK and other Left democratic forces to defeat both the Congress-DMK combine and the communal BJP,” he told The Hindu.
Asked whether the party had identified seats for the Assembly elections, Mr. Ramakrishnan said, “We have just reached an understanding with the AIADMK and it will take some time to finalise other issues.”
While the Centre was implementing neo-liberalism with fervour, the DMK was toeing the line. “It has affected all sections of society. Frequent rise in the price of petroleum products, increase in the price of construction materials, divestment of public sector undertakings, foreign direct investment in retail trading and online trading have destroyed the lives of the middle class and the poor,” he said.
Mr. Ramakrishnan said the four and half years of the DMK government had witnessed sand smuggling, land grabbing, irregularities in the administration, rampant corruption in all departments and amassment of wealth by the ruling partymen.
“The family members of Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi had spread their tentacles like an octopus in the fields of media, cinema and other areas,” he said, adding that “the interests of the people of Tamil Nadu can be safeguarded only by defeating the DMK-Congress combine in the election.”
