Veteran leader of the Communist Party of India R. Nallakannu has said that the Left parties have been striving to form an alternative to the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliances in the coming Lok Sabha elections.
The Left parties have entered into an electoral understanding with as many as 11 regional parties across the country, Mr Nallakannu told reporters here on Monday. If the alternative front comes to power, the Left parties would back Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalaithaa to be selected as Prime Minister.
He faulted the recent practice of political parties in projecting certain personalities as Prime Ministerial candidates much before the elections. He pointed out that while the BJP had proposed Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as its Prime Ministerial candidate, the Congress had hinted party vice-president Rahul Gandhi as Prime Ministerial candidate.
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Such projections were against democratic norms. The established democratic practice was to duly elect Members of Parliament through election and then make the elected MPs to select the Prime Minister from them.
But, the Congress and the BJP were deliberately flouting such democratic process. Mr Nallakannu charged the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government with pursuing “retrograde economic policies” that had stunted growth of the country.
He voiced concern over allowing foreign direct investment in strategic fields such as armaments manufacturing, which would endanger the sovereignty of the country.
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The BJP was stuck with the odium of a communal party and, therefore, in a pluralistic society like India, which was hailed for its multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-lingual set-up and secular outlook, its coming to the fore would not augur well for the country.