Bhubaneswar: CPI (M) General Secretary Prakash Karat on Thursday mounted a blistering attack on the BJP saying that the non-Congress secular parties can only fight and stop the BJP from ruining and exploiting the country.
“We are going to co-operate with non-Congress and non-BJP parties in the ensuing elections so that we can present some alternative to the people. We are hopeful, after the polls we will be able to provide some concrete alternative in terms of the fact that Congress is going down and the only force which can only fight and stop the BJP is the non-Congress secular parties,” CPI (M) General Secretary Prakash Karat told reporters here.
Asked about the parties he is mentioning, Karat said, ”We are going to work with non-Congress secular parties and are in consultation with various strong regional parties including Samajwadi party in Uttar Pradesh, Janata Dal (United) in Bihar, AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka and BJD in Odisha to work towards ensuring that non-Congress and non-BJP forces do well in the Lok Sabha polls.”
Criticising the social-welfare programmes being implemented by the UPA government, the Left stalwart hit out at the Centre saying in the name of growth both BJP and Congress were trying to adopt new polices.
“There is no difference between Manmohan Singh’s govt and what Narendra Modi is projecting,” Karat stated.
“Record of the UPA government is their policies have caused tremendous suffering to the people due to price rise, due to growing inequalities and of course massive corruption which the UPA govt has allowed the loot of natural resources of our country to the corporates and handful of companies. So the mood of the people is to defeat Congress and they are going to do badly in the polls,” he said.
On fielding candidates in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, Karat informed the media that the party would put up strong candidates in eight states.
“In the last politburo meeting, it has been decided to field potential candidates in 35 seats in eight states. However, the central committee meet in March will decide about the rest of the states,” Karat said.