By D. Surya
Hyderabad, March 23: The four major Left parties on Sunday stressed the need to create and present a third alternative before the people.
Leaders of the Communist Party of India, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Revolutionary Socialist Party and the All India Forward Bloc came together on the occasion of the 20th party congress of the CPI held here.
Delivering the inaugural address, CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan, said every effort should be made to build a Left-democratic alternative to the Congress as well as the BJP. "We should present an alternative programme," he said.
Mr Bardhan also warned that the controversial Indo-US nuclear deal was an attempt to cap a strategic partnership with the United States. "We have no problems with the India-specific safeguards agreement (with the IAEA), our opposition is to the Indo-US nuclear agreement as such," he said.
Echoing this, CPI (M) general secretary Prakash Karat said the Left parties had been at the forefront of the struggle against the nuclear deal and they would continue to oppose any military collaboration with the United States.
All the Left leaders stressed the need to wage a battle to protect India from the "strategic embrace" of the US.
The Left leaders criticised the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre for wilfully violating the National Com-mon Minimum Programme. At the same time, the Left leaders patted themselves on the back for "acting as the sentinel of the people's interests" in preventing the handing over of vital control of the financial sector to foreign capital or opening up of retail trade to foreign direct investment.
Mr Bardhan pointed out that the "so-called economic growth" had bypassed ordinary people. "The lives of middle-class people have gone awry because of the soaring prices of essential commodities," he said.
The CPI leader added that the agrarian crisis had led to 1.5 lakh farmers committing suicide in the past 10 years. "We will intensify land struggles in Andhra Pradesh and other states," he said.
Delegates from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Japan, China, the US, Canada, France, Germany and other countries are also attending the five-day CPI congress here.
