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Centre-State ties key element in third alternative: Karat

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The restructuring of Centre-State relations will be one of the key principles on which the third alternative is forged, Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat on Wednesday.

Delivering the 12th K.M. Bashir Memorial Lecture here, he said the Left wanted Centre-State relations redefined to make the exercise more democratic and ensure devolution of greater powers and finances to the States. The Left raised this issue strongly in the past, especially when there was a raging debate over the Sarkaria Commission recommendations.

However, the issue got pushed to the background. There was urgent need to bring back the federal agenda in view of the Centre’s imposition of neo-liberal economic agenda on the States.

Mr. Karat identified four principles on which the Left parties wanted the third alternative forged: the struggle to evolve an alternative to the neo-liberal economic policies of the last two decades, the endeavour to bring to an end the country’s dependence on imperialism, the struggle to evolve a more egalitarian federal structure and an anti-communal political option and the development of a social charter that would assure the oppressed sections a better deal.

It would be wrong to see the Left and democratic alternative that the Left had in mind as the third alternative which was being talked about these days, he said.

The country was in need of an alternative to both the Congress and the BJP in the immediate context, and the Left was prepared to ally with any party which was willing to accept some of the core principles he had outlined. “It will be a step-by-step progress to the real alternative.”

Mr. Karat said a beginning could be made if non-Congress and non-BJP parties agreed on the need for land reforms, a firm commitment to secularism, strengthening of the public distribution system, and pursuit of an independent foreign policy.

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