CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat, making a presentation on "The Political Situation and the Way Forward" at a seminar organised by AKG Study & Research Centre in Thiruvananthapuram to mark Jyoti Basu Centenary Year, said that "In the coming Lok Sabha elections, appropriate tactics should be adopted to defeat Congress and thwart BJP and strengthen the Left and non-Congress, non-BJP forces."
Setting out the twin objectives before the Left parties, he said they should lead the fight against UPA's "harmful policies and corruption" and pay equal attention to mobilise secular-democratic forces to combat the "disruptive politics" of RSS-BJP combine which is projecting Narendra Modi as its Prime Ministerial candidate. He emphasized the need to build an alternative to bourgeois-landlord policies of both the parties by rallying forces like regional parties around alternative policies.
He said that though most regional parties had no common political and policy positions and were prone to take stands based on their interests in the states, CPI(M) has been trying to draw some of them into joint actions on common policy issues.
Prakash Karat said that UPA's return to power in 2009 was largely due to implementation of several pro-people policies during 2004-09 under the influence of the Left which had supported it then.In contrast,UPA-2 had a "disastrous record" in aggressively pursuing policies of "appeasing" corporates and big businesses at the "neglect" of vast sections of people.
At the outset, Prakash Karat paid rich tributes to the memory of Jyoti Basu.
Thiruvananthapuram, Nov. 6, 2013