No Common Programme With Cong, Says Cpm

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) will be with the Congress in the government-making exercise but will desist from any association with it in the politics of street.

Harkishan Singh Surjeet, CPI(M) general secretary, however, ruled out any alliance with the Congress. CPM has offered issue-based support to the Congress in the event of the the BJP-led coalition government falling and election not taking place immediately thereafter.

In the politics of street or in other words mass movement, the Communists take resort to extra-parliamentary means to popularise the Left policies. Since the CPM still believes the Congress is a bourgeois party and its economic policy of liberalisation is anathema to the people's interest, any association with it at the popular plane will be misunderstood. Congress, on the other hand, is a mass-based party, unlike the cadre-based CPM, does not have any marked preference for mass movement.

Understandably, Surjeet was eager to drive the point home that the CPM support was limited in scope. He refrained from giving any time limit to the Congress in this regard.

Apart from declaring that the party's options were open on any other point other than issue-based support to the Congress, Surjeet said he would speak with Left parties to sort out differences.

These parties stick to their anti-Congress stance.

Surjeet would also seek closer ties with CPI though he drew a line between closer relationship and unity thereby ruling out any merger between the two communist parties.

Yesterday, the plennary session of the CPI(M) adopted a resolution on the rising prices urging the people to fight back the "anti-people economic policies" of the central government. The party congress has also extended support to the general strike on Decembert 11 called by the National Platform of Mass Organisations.