Mounting an attack on the ruling UPA’s policies, Left parties on Sunday threatened to launch a nationwide agitation against any hike in petro-product prices and announced that they would forge a “third alternative” of non-Congress and non-BJP parties.

The Left’s agitation threat was made by the CPI in Chennai and the CPM in the national capital.

Addressing a press conference at the end of the three-day meeting of the national council in the TN capital, CPI General Secretary A B Bardhan said though the UPA government was talking of a nominal increase in the price of petrol, diesel, kerosene and LPG, “it will be like the proverbial last straw on the camel’s back as the common man was already reeling under ever-increasing prices”.

Opposing Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s proposal for merger of major public sector banks, Bardhan said this would defeat the purpose of nationalisation as the number of bank branches would go down.

CPM blames UPA
Meanwhile, the CPM, the CPI’s senior partner, blamed the follies of the UPA government for the strengthening of BJP and said it would forge a “third alternative” of non-Congress, non-BJP parties on a common policy platform.
“Left parties and the CPM have a responsibility for initiating the process of formation of a third alternative. We do not want a situation where there is a Congress-led combination and a BJP-led combination. Neither do we agree with the policies pursued by these two parties,” CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat told reporters in New Delhi.

Listing out the failures of Manmohan Singh government, he said the agrarian crisis, rising unemployment and spiralling prices of essential commodities could pave the way for the comeback of BJP and communal forces at the Centre.

Releasing the Draft Political Resolution for discussion by all CPM members two months ahead of the Coimbatore Party Congress, he said “the party will continue to adopt tactics for isolating and defeating the BJP. It will not enter into any alliance or united front with the Congress”.

Karat, who was accompanied by his politburo colleagues including Sitaram Yechury, said the CPM “differentiates between the BJP and Congress, considering the latter as a secular bourgeois party though it often vacillates when communal forces go on the offensive”.

He said the third alternative should not be reduced to a mere electoral alliance, though the CPM would continue to have electoral adjustments and alliances wherever required.

On the controversial Indo-US nuclear deal, Karat said the understanding between the United Progressive Alliance and the Left was that the government would negotiate with the International Atomic Energy Agency on the India-specific safeguards and bring the outcome to the joint UPA-Left committee.