Chandigarh, March 30
Disenchanted with the economic policies of the Congress-led UPA coalition, the leaders of the four major Left parties today emphasised the need for unity amongst them to strengthen the Communist movement in the country and provide an alternative political force for other parties to rally behind them.

The verdict of the 14th Lok Sabha and the continued economic reform policy of the UPA seems to be acting as a boon for the Left parties, as for the first time since the split of the Communist party in the country in 1964, voices of unity amongst the Left parties reached new decibels today.

The leaders of the four Left parties, at the inaugural session of the CPI’s 19th party congress, expressed the need to fight the Congress and the BJP in a united manner and also do the same during the elections.

They emphasised on the need to strengthen the organisation and spread their wings in the Hindi heartland, a clear indication that the days of unflinching support to the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Samajwadi Party were numbered.

CPI General Secretary A. B. Bardhan in his inaugural speech to meet the challenges facing the country, the CPI and the CPM, which are the core of the Left Front and the base of Left unity, have to work in close cooperation and unity.

“Experience has shown that there is need for closer coordination among the Left parties, both at the leadership level outside and also at the parliamentary level, so as to do away with any possibility of confusion in deciding our stand and tactics on complicated issues that come up,” he said.

CPM General Secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet, who also dealt with the Left unity issue in his speech at length, later told The Tribune that the “talk of unity does not amount to merger of the two parties.”

Addressing the inaugural session, he said, “CPM-CPI cooperation is the heart of bringing about a higher level of Left unity. Our two parties share the common and glorious heritage of the communist moment. We had to separate because of the political and ideological differences which affected the strategic perspective over a period of time.”

Communists in India must remain true to Marxism-Leninism and apply it creatively to Indian condition. This is the way to resolve differences and strengthen the communist movement in the country, he said.

Surjeet said, “We should strive for closer cooperation and coordination in the coming days. The joint Left effort will enable us to rally other democratic forces which is necessary to build the Left and democratic alternative.”

Earlier, veteran Communist leader Satpal Dang who hoisted the party flag at Kisan Bhavan, the main venue of the Congress, had a dig at the CPM on the issue of unity. “The main reason for branding the CPI as revisionist was this line of `unity and struggle’ in relation to the bourgeois Congress, while CPM was for blind anti-Congressism. We are happy that the CPM has travelled a long way from this wrong position as far as their assessment of bourgeois Congress is concerned. The fact that Communists have now more seats in the Lok Sabha than ever before is the result of correct electoral tactics resulting from a change in the attitude of the CPM towards the Congress.”

Both Bardhan and Surjeet attacked the economic policy of the UPA government and categorized it as a “bourgeois government.”

Surjeet said, “the UPA government seems to believe that continuing with economic reforms `with a human face’ is the panacea for the country’s problems. We do not share this approach.”

Bardhan said the UPA government at present is somewhat restrained and hampered because of our opposition, voices of caution within their own parties and also a certain degrees of popular resistance. This is the basis of the contradiction and conflict that we find in our relation with the government.

General Secretary of All-India Forward Bloc Deb Batra Biswas in his speech emphasized that the economic policy of liberalisation and reforms was anti-worker and anti-farmer.

He urged all Left parties to fight for the rights of the workers and farmers in a united manner and not break up during election battles.

In his speech to the inaugural session of the party congress, Secretary of Revolutionary Socialist Party Abani Roy said his party at its party Congress had urged other three Left parties to review the outside support being extended to the UPA government.