'People's Front will be anti-BJP, anti-Cong.'

By Barun Das Gupta

GUWAHATI, APRIL 5. The CPI(M) today made it clear that the alliance or front of Left, democratic and secular parties it was trying to forge at the national level would be both anti-BJP and anti-Congress.

The Assam CPI leader, Mr. Promode Gogoi, who resigned from the State Cabinet on Wednesday, had said that his party would try to forge unity of all Left, secular and democratic parties, including the Congress, to prevent the AGP-BJP combine from capturing power in Assam and that the nature of electoral alliance would vary from State to State according to the ground reality.

Commenting on this, the CPI(M) leader, Mr. Prakash Karat said that as a national party, the CPI(M) ``does not buy this argument that alliances can vary from State to State.''

The party also wanted to fight the coming elections in Assam jointly with all the Left, democratic and secular parties with the same objective of preventing the AGP-BJP alliance from coming to power and the CPI would not be ``barred'' from joining this platform even if it had some understanding with the Congress, he said.

The four-party alliance in Assam, he said, had died automatically when the AGP decided to go with the BJP. The AGP- BJP alliance was an example of ``sheer opportunism born out of the desperation of both the parties,'' he added.

Mr. Karat said the People's Front was in the process of being formed. So far, seven parties - CPI(M), CPI, RSP, Forward Bloc, RJD, JD(S) and Samajwadi Party - had agreed to the formation of such a front.

Well before formalising any alliance at the national level, a minimum common programme would be drawn up. Only those accepting this programme would be admitted into the alliance, he said. The Opposition parties in Parliament would sit together soon to decide what they should do when the session opens on April 15, he said.

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