At its 20th National Congress, the Communist Party of India (CPI) called on Left parties to unite themselves into a third political alternative and evolve a Leftist and democratic programme based on people’s issues. CPI general secretary A B Bardhan said: “Given the critical situation in the country, we must build an alternative to both the Congress and the BJP. There are other secular democratic parties and groups who are also looking for an alternative. We have to interact with them and try to draw them into common struggles for forging such a third alternative.”Emphasising on unity among the Left parties, Bardhan said: “Present here today are the leaders of the Left parties. We may sometimes have differences. But we are together on most issues affecting our country and our people.” With top leaders of the four Left parties present, some fiery speeches and scathing attacks on the UPA and the BJP made up for the incessant rain since Saturday evening that proved to be a dampener for the four-day event. Apart from Bardhan, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat, All India Forward Bloc general secretary Debabrata Biswas and Revolutionary Socialist Party general secretary T J Chandrachudan were also present at the event. Representatives from 28 countries across five continents and over 800 delegates from India are attending the meet.Matching Bardhan’s call for unity, Karat said: “What we have achieved in the last three years is in great part due to the unity in thought and action of the Left parties. Coordination and united approach of the CPI(M) and CPI are crucial in this respect. As for the Left parties, it is not abnormal to have differences on certain issues, but nothing should be done which would weaken Left unity.”Bardhan added, “We want to focus on the Hindi belt to gain popular support. The Hindi belt is a vast area and most parts are underdeveloped and farmers and poor people are exploited. The Left parties will have to unite and make a concerted effort to break into the Hindi-speaking region.”The meet will discuss the nuclear deal, farmer suicides, rising prices of essential commodities and SEZs. Bardhan set the tone for the day by receiving a torch from the memorial of Telengana’s first martyr Doddi Komaraiah which was brought by CPI cadre from Kadivendi.“The much debated Indo-US nuclear deal is not just an innocent attempt to gain access to nuclear energy but an attempt to cap the strategic partnership as well. The Hyde Act which governs this agreement contains a number of restrictive, intrusive and extraneous clauses that are derogatory to our sovereignty and the pursuit of an untrammeled and independent foreign policy,” Bardhan said, accusing the UPA of entering into huge deals with the ‘military-industrial complex’ in the US for purchase of military hardware. “India even helped to send an Israeli satellite into space for spying on Iran, justifying it as a commercial enterprise,” he said.
