Left will join secular parties to defeat Congress, BJP: Prakash Karat

To defeat both the Congress and the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls of 2014, the Left parties will join hands with other secular parties, Communist Party of India-Marxist general secretary Prakash Karat said in the Tripura capital Sunday.

"The CPI-M in alliance with other parties would launch a massive movement across the country to protest rising price rise, unemployment and corruption," Karat said, while addressing a mammoth gathering in the only state in the country where his party is now in power.

"We would fight tooth and nail to defeat the Congress in the ensuing Lok Sabha polls and stop the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) from coming to power at the centre," he said.

Karat said that 14 non-Congress and non-BJP secular parties held a significant conference in New Delhi in October to raise common issues causing people distress.

"When prices of essential commodities, especially food items, sky rocketed everyday, the Congress government at the centre remained silent, and all the BJP was interested in was whom they will make prime minister," the CPI-M leader said.

The Left leader said that after India's independence, the biggest ever communal riot took place in Gujarat, ruled by the BJP and headed by Narendra Modi, the BJP's prime ministerial candidate. Speaking of the prospect of Modi as prime minister, Karat said: "This would be most unfortunate for the country."

"In seven to eight states in India, Congress and BJP are stronger, but in the remaining states, the other parties, including the Left parties, are stronger," Karat said.

"Tripura's Left Front has shown such governance in the small state that it would be an example for other bigger states," Karat said.

The gathering was organised on the concluding day of the three-day party central committee meeting. This was the first time the meeting was being held in Tripura since the formation of the CPI-M in 1964.

Karat along with 77 central committee members, including 13 Politburo members (there are 93 CC members in all, and 15 PB members) attended the three-day CPI-M meeting, which began Friday.

Politburo member Sitaram Yechury said the highest number of starving people live in India. "Out of five children dying of starvation in the world every day, three are from India," he said.

He said that following the epic Mahabharat's politics, the Congress has been trying to capture the power by hook or crook, while the BJP gets support from the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) for pursuing divisive politics.

"The CPI-M has been trying to form an alternative front, not to run the government, but to execute alternative policies for the all-round development of all sections of people," Yechury said.

Another politburo member, Brinda Karat said that Tripura is a model state in India, and other states can follow the pattern of governance of the state.

She said that 95 percent of tribal-dominated villages in Madhya Pradesh have no drinking water facilities, and the forest rights act has not been implemented in Gujrat, Chhattisgarh and other BJP- and Congress-ruled states.

CPI-M Kerala unit secretary and politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan said that the Congress government in his state was not only killing Left party members and leaders, but has also registered false cases against party leaders and members.

Politburo members Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and S.R. Pillai, West Bengal unit secretary Biman Bose, his Tripura counterpart Bijan Dhar and other leaders also spoke at the public rally.