Thaindian News

Kolkata, April 27 (IANS) Dismissing signals from the Congress that it was open to an alliance with the Communists after the Lok Sabha polls, the Communist Party of India (CPI) Monday said the Left parties were against both the Congress or the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led governments.
“Often they (Congress) say doors are open for us, as if we are waiting to troop in. I would like to make it clear that we do not propose to support either a Congress or BJP-led governments,” CPI general secretary A.B. Barshan told reporters here.

Bardhan said the people in the country wanted a change “..they want a non-BJP, non-congress combination. And we have been trying for this”.

He said it was up to the Congress to take or give support to the Left.

“It is their decision, not ours and it is they who will have to bear the consequences of their decision.”

Bardhan claimed that non-Congress and non-BJP political parties have done “extremely well” in the first two phases of the polls April 16 and 23.

“From my visits to various states and the reports that I have received, I think people want to break out from the prison of the two-party system. The non-Congress and non-BJP parties have done extremely well in the first two phases of the polls,” Bardhan said.

He said there was tremendous response from the people for an alternative to both the Congress and the BJP.

Coming down heavily on the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, Bardhan said its liberalisation and globalisation programmes could have spelt the country’s economic disaster had the Left parties - supporting the government from outside - not stopped the privatisation of banking and insurance sectors.

He painted a grim picture of the Indian economy. “So far there have been 20 lakh (2 million) job cuts in the last four-five months. If the economic situation remains the same, there will be many more job cuts by 2010.”

Ridiculing the UPA’s drumbeating for the Rs.75,000 crore farm loan waiver package, he said: “Nearly 59,000 farmers committed suicide during this regime.”

The CPI veteran also assailed the UPA for discarding the Nehruvian independent foreign policy.

“We have always followed the Nehruvian independent foreign policy and non-alignment. The new mindset that is prevailing - where you take US as your leader, where you are going to strategic partnership with the US. I think the old mindset is good enough.”