Date:15/05/2003 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2003/05/15/stories/2003051503551100.htm

National

No ties with Cong.: CPI

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI MAY 14. The Communist Party of India today ruled out electoral alliance with the Congress for the Assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, while maintaining that its objective was to prevent the Bharatiya Janata Party from coming to power.

``We will do everything to defeat the BJP, but that does not mean we would have an overall front. There would be no electoral alliance with the Congress,'' the CPI general secretary, A.B. Bardhan, told reporters.

The CPI had begun talks with the CPI (M), the CPI (ML), the Samanata Dal, the Samajwadi Party and the Janata Dal (S).

The party, Mr. Bardhan said, does not agree with the view that by contesting on its own or in understanding with other parties, the secular votes would be split. The aim was to take those votes which otherwise would go to the BJP. The party was holding talks with the Nationalist Congress Party in Chhattisgarh.

Mr. Bardhan said the party had decided to organise ``padayatras'' across the country between September 15 and October 15, culminating in `gheraos' of district headquarters.

On the West Bengal panchayat poll results, he said it only showed that both the BJP and Trinamool Congress were only ``irritants'' in the State politics.