The Hindu : Bardhan moots timeframe for merger of Left parties

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 24, 2002

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National

Bardhan moots timeframe for merger of Left parties

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM March 23. The CPI general secretary, A.B. Bardhan, has said that there is increasing similarity in the perceptions of his party and that of the CPI(M) on the Congress.

At a press conference here today, he agreed that there was an increasing commonality of views. "I would say so, though others may deny it. We are yet to study the documents from Hyderabad, but from their draft political resolution I find that they too differentiate between the Congress and the communal threat posed by the BJP."

Interestingly, Mr. Bardhan maintained a silence on forging an alternative to the Congress and the BJP when listing the subjects to be discussed by the 18th CPI congress, starting here on March 26. He said his party wanted a credible alternative to both, but did not think it should be called a third alternative. "What we need is a credible alternative based on a clear programme and a spirit of accommodation."

The Left opposition to the Congress, he said, was centred on its economic policies. There was excellent floor coordination between the Left parties and the Congress in Parliament, and also some electoral adjustments in States such as Punjab. However, there could be no political alliance with the Congress because then it would become impossible for the Left to fight that party's economic policies.

The CPI leader said that "the threat posed by the BJP to national unity" would be the main theme to be discussed by the CPI congress. The threat to the nation's economic sovereignty due to the privatisation and globalisation efforts of the NDA Government would also be discussed, as also the "abject surrender" to U. S. imperialism in the matter of foreign policy.

On the CPI(M)'s repeated rejection of the merger idea, Mr. Bardhan wondered how the Left could call upon other parties to rally against the BJP and the new economic policies if the two communist parties could not unite. On the statement by some CPI(M) leaders that the time was not ripe for unification of the two, he said, "If somebody says the time is not ripe, I would say someday the time will have to become ripe (for Communist unity)."

Asked what stood in the way of reunification, he said that though there was not much difference on national and international issues, differences on programmatic issues remained. "It is time we defined our differences and worked to a timeframe. Then there could be an open discussion." Left unity would give a thrust to the unity of secular and democratic forces in the country.

Mr. Bardhan came down heavily on the decision to convene a joint session of Parliament to pass the Bill seeking to replace the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO). The decision was a "bad omen" for the country's democratic structure. He recalled that joint sessions of the two Houses of Parliament had been convened only rarely and that too to clear matters relating to major social or political reform legislation.

He also regretted that the protest by NDA allies over the Ayodhya and Gujarat developments had ended in a whimper. These incidents proved that the BJP was no longer governed by the NDA agenda. "The NDA allies have shown that the lure of the chair is more powerful than the call of their conscience," he said.

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