CPI rules out any alliance with Cong

KOCHI: Ruling out any alliance with Congress in the event of a hung Parliament after the next general elections, the CPI today said the Left's strategic goal was to have an alternative to both the Congress and the BJP.
    
"We have withdrawn support to the Congress. How can there be any support to the party in the event of a hung Parliament?" CPI General Secretary A B Bardhan said replying to a query on any possible tie-ups with the Congress after the elections.
    
"Any support to the Congress had been ruled out," he told a meet-the-press programme organised by the Ernakulam Press Club here.
    
About 10 parties coming together after the trust vote is in itself "a very big force" which would be an alternative to the saffron party and the Congress, he said.
    
Clarifying that these parties had not set up an electoral front or sewed up by an electoral alliance, he said "The importance of this combination was that they would jointly campaign to bring about a situation where there will be new political realignment."
   
Asked whom the CPI considered its worst enemy -- the Congress or the BJP, Bardhan said "At the moment I am not saying who is our enemy. We all are patriots. For the Manmohan Singh Government, those who voted for the nuclear deal are patriots."
    
Stating that both the Congress and BJP had to be fought, he said the Left's strategic goal was to having an alternative to both the parties.
    
Demanding an "in depth" probe into the recent serial blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad, Bardhan said this is a "serious attack" on the country's stability.
    
The intention was to create panic and polarise the communities, he said. Some people also tried to attribute alternative motives.
    
When asked about the "conspiracy" theory put forth by BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, he said "she is talking about some other conspiracy which she alone knows and which her party also does not know."
    
On the confidence vote won by the UPA, he said though it won the vote, it had lost the moral authority to continue. "...the things that have happened to convert a minority government to majority, to engineer defections, to manage cross voting. This victory was managed by cross voting and the Left has not been isolated," he said.
    
The Left parties, BSP, TRS and others which have come together would campaign various issues, including price rise and inflation, the crisis being faced by farmers leading to their suicide, land grab for SEZs and the Indo-US nuclear deal.
    
The deal "is not in national interest... is full of lies and an exaggeration," he charged adding that in the name of energy security, the deal would hamper the country's sovereignty.
    
They will also fight the communal forces which were trying to take advantage of discontent of the people due to inflation, he said.
    
On Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee's expulsion from the party, Bardhan said CPI(M) had no other option, but to expel him. "In the party all are equal."
    
Chatterjee was a veteran Communist leader and parliamentarian for over three and half decades. But he was elected on the CPI(M) ticket and continued to be a member of the party till recently, he said.
    
On the Prime Minister's "bonded slave" comment, he said the Congress government survived for four years due to the Left support. Was there an attempt to make him a bonded slave?, he asked.
     
Bhardan said a "sinister" attempt was being made by the government to make the CBI its "tool."  The government was using  the agency to "switch on" and "switch off" investigations against people as per its whims and fancies.