October 12, 2008

CPI(M) to discuss strategy for LS elections

Kolkata (PTI),11 Oct.: The top leadership of the CPI(M) will discuss several crucial issues, including its strategy for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, at its central committee meeting here from Sunday.
"We will be discussing mainly the overall political situation in the country, including the party's tactic for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections," CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat told PTI from Delhi over phone.
The three-day central committee meeting, he said, would also finalise a document on the demands for restructuring Centre-state relations.
The signing of the 123 agreement, which the CPI(M) has contended was "a complete surrender" to the US and "betrayal" of India's vital interests would also be one of the topics of the discussions on which the party would chalk out its future strategy, Karat said.
CPI(M) leader and party MP Md Selim said "the Central Committee would finalise the document on the demands for restructuring Centre-State relations before beginning talks with other parties for a broad-based movement."
It is not clear, though, if BJP ruled states would also be included in this 'broad-based movement'.
On the party's poll preparedness, Selim who is the Deputy Leader of the CPI(M)'s parliamentary party said "We suspect the government will call elections in January or a little later after that. So, we will take stock of the political scenario, both at the national and state levels, and discuss preparations."
"In this scenario, when all other parties are preparing for the polls, so are we," Selim told PTI.
During a recent interaction with the members of Indian Women's Press Corps he had said that CPI(M) was for a non-Congress and non-BJP alliance and was trying to work out some understanding with the Mayawati-led BSP.
He said the party's effort would be to form a Third Front or an alliance to work with on a common platform of policies.
He had said that after the parliament elections, his party would neither support the BJP nor any government led by a party that had a strategic alliance with the US "with the India-US Nuclear Agreement in it".
The party's state secretariat on Friday discussed the contours of the post-Singur political campaign against the Trinamool Congress's alleged "destructive, anti-industry and anti-development politics" which would be finalised after the Central Committee meet.
Putting up a brave Front after the exit of the Tata's Nano car project, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has said the state government would fight and overcome the obstacles for industrialisation observing that the state has lost one battle, but not the war.
The financial crisis blowing across the world, the UPA government's "failure" to get its act together in curbing terrorism and rising attacks on the churches in NDA-ruled Orissa and Karnataka were also likely to figure in the central committee deliberations.
The UPA policies on economic front including the rise in the prices of essential commodities during its regime will also come up for discussions in the meeting, party sources said.

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