The CPI (M) has ruled out supporting the Congress in forming the next government at the Centre and attacked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over bribery allegations during the confidence vote.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The CPI (M) has ruled out supporting the Congress in forming the next government at the Centre and attacked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over bribery allegations during the confidence vote.
It also parried questions over projecting BSP supremo Mayawati as the Prime Ministerial candidate by non-Congress and non-BJP parties in the next Lok Sabha elections.
"We are going to call the defeat of BJP and the Congress. And after that if you think we are going to support a Congress government, I don't know, I think people will accuse us of opportunism," CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat told Malayalam television channel "Kairali TV".
Attacking the government over allegations of bribe to get the support of opposition MPs for the trust vote, he said earlier during Narasimha Rao's tenure also the Congress had adopted the same method for the government's survival which led to the JMM bribery scandal.
"It was on a much bigger scale this time. Manmohan Singh would never escape the moral blame," Karat said.
Challenging the UPA, he said "Let us see how they run this government with a manufactured majority. We all know how they won the vote with bribery, intimidation and blackmailing."
Asked about CPI leader A B Bardhan's statement that Mayawati could be projected as Prime Minister, Karat said "He (bardhan) was asked, do you think she can become PM. He said, Yes why not. That is his way of saying that he has no no objection to any particular leader becoming PM. We don't look at it in terms of projecting an individual."
Asked if he was saying that Mayawati would not not be projected as Prime Minister, Karat said "I am not not ready to say anything. It is too premature. In this country there have been PMs who people never expected could become prime ministers.
"And there have been prime ministers who people could not not think of as PM turned out to be good prime ministerial material. So why this debate. It is not not a meaningful debate."
Asked if the survival of the UPA government was a setback to the Left, Karat said "when I said the government was doomed we were aware they may be able to muster a majority. What I meant was it was politically doomed. Even after winning the trust vote they have been exposed before the whole country, as a party and as a coalition, which has done unethical and corrupt practices to get a majority."
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