Comrades toe Karat line

VV Balakrishna
Express News Service
First Published : 11 Aug 2010 03:34:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 11 Aug 2010 11:53:46 AM IST

VIJAYAWADA: In the face of existential crisis, the CPM has pushed all talk of internal bickerings under the carpet and put up a united front here on Tuesday. Taking a moral high ground, the party’s Central Committee backed the decision to withdraw support to the UPA-I over the Indo-US nuclear deal ahead of the previous general elections and decided to make the battle for Bengal, a national issue. In the process, it gave its general secretary Prakash Karat, a vocal opponent of the nuclear deal, a fresh lease of life.

“The Central Committee meeting endorsed the stand taken by the party to withdraw support to UPA-1 and felt that it was correct and necessary,’’ said Karat, who had drawn flak from his comrades for the decision which resulted in a Congress-Trinamool alliance in West Bengal.

Briefing reporters on the decisions of the Central Committee meeting, Karat said the committee had, however, felt the timing of the withdrawal of support was not correct. “We should have done it a few days earlier, i.e., before the government held talks with the IAEA and agreed to the conditions set by the US. The CPM should have been more vigilant and should not have allowed the government to go for talks with the IAEA,’’ Karat said. Karat did not agree with the view that the decision forced the Congress to cosy up to the Trinamool.

The endorsement of the nuke decision is being seen as the Central Committee’s willingness to toe the Karat line, despite rumblings in the party’s Bengal unit.

On the crucial Bengal question, the Central Committee decided to make the party problem a national issue. It called upon the party units in all states to take up programmes between September 12 and 18 across the nation highlighting the situation in Bengal and the nexus between the TMC and Maoists. The committee, at a meeting here on Tuesday, endorsed the draft review report and the draft political resolution. It decided to maintain equi-distance from both the Congress and the BJP. “We will launch our agitational programmes independently. Besides, we will try for the unity of the Left and work together with regional parties like TDP, which have secular credentials,’’ Karat said.

He said the political line of the party was to oppose the neo-liberal policies of the Congress-led UPA and Hindutva agenda of the BJP. The BJP was pushing forward its communal agenda in states, where it was in power, he added. He said that the eleven tasks mentioned in the draft political resolution would be taken up by the party.

The CC meeting discussed the decision of the party to withdraw support to the UPA and how to proceed on Bengal and Kerala elections. "We will discuss in detail the Kashmir issue in our next CC meeting,’’ Karat said.