Left to take on UPA govt after polls

The CPI(M) will turn the heat on the UPA government after the Assembly polls despite the Congress avoiding any direct criticism of the Left parties in the election meetings.

CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat has made it clear that a Left victory will mean tougher times for the UPA at the Centre. "The LDF campaign (in Kerala) highlights the important role of the Left at the national level in the present political situation.

Victory of the LDF will strengthen the Left's intervention further," he has written in the latest issue of the party organ, People's Democracy.

The CPI(M) has already sought a meeting of the UPA-Left coordination committee to discuss the UPA regime's "deviations" from the common minimum programme on economic and foreign policies. CPI(M) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury said the meeting was likely to take place shortly after the elections.

In election meetings in Kerala this week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi did not take on the Left directly. During pre-poll talks in West Bengal, some senior Congress leaders led by Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee had opposed an alliance with the Trinamool Congress, saying it might hurt the Left and affect the government at the Centre.

But the Left is not impressed. "The Left stand in pressing the government to implement the pro-people measures of the CMP, opposition to privatisation of profitable PSUs, FDI in retail trade and to the UPA government's pro-US foreign policy stance, such as on the Iran nuclear issue, are also being taken to the people," Karat said in the article.

Karat, who was back from Kerala, launched a frontal attack on the UDF government, holding it responsible for steep fall in the prices of cash crops, suicide by farmers and rise in communal violence.

With the UDF making the alleged involvement of CPI(M) State Secretary Pinarayi Vijayan in the SNC Lavalin scam an issue, Karat tried to turn the table on the UDF.

"The social crisis (in Kerala) is manifest in the rise of criminal activities and mafia gangs in cities, spurt in cases of sexual exploitation and trafficking in women. Two ministers had to resign on corruption charges and another Muslim League minister in a case of sexual exploitation," Karat said.