New Delhi, September 20
The CPI will forge ties with the Lokbhalai Party of Balwant Singh Ramoowalia and other Left parties to prevent the Akali-BJP combine from coming to power by taking advantage of the total failure of the Amarinder Singh government.

The party had contested the last Assembly elections in alliance with the Congress.

“Our party workers and peasants have been jointly fighting the Amarinder Singh government over its anti-farmer and anti-labour policies, so the question of alliance with the Congress does not arise,” said the CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan.

He said the party would also talk with other secular and democratic forces in the state to prevent the “communal alliance from capturing advantage of the political situation.”

However, in the election strategy for Uttar Pradesh, Bardhan, at the end of the national executive of the party, said it would not go with the CPM in the coming Assembly poll there and would cooperate with the V.P.Singh-led Jan Morcha and other secular parties to fight the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party.

Describing the situation as "very complicated" in UP where the CPM was in alliance with the SP, Bardhan said despite the ruling party being "secular", it would be "very difficult for us to support" it as the state government was working in the interests of big business houses sacrificing people's interests and carrying out "repression" against them.

"We will work for defeating the SP and the BJP by forging a broad secular and progressive alliance in cooperation with the Jan Morcha and its allies", he said.

"The BJP no longer constitutes a threat in UP.... It is only a shadow of its previous self. Our aim will be to see that it loses", he said in reply to a question.

Asked whether the CPI would align with the Congress in UP, Bardhan said let the party decided what it should do.

However, in Uttarakhand and Manipur, the party would strive to forge unity with other Left parties to oppose the BJP-led NDA and the Congress.

Maintaining that the CPI would contest "a substantial number of seats on its own" in Manipur, he said it would have adjustments with other Left parties in the state where it had five MLAs.

Regarding the process of delimitation of constituencies, the CPI leader said the Delimitation Commission should start working only after the women's Bill was passed by Parliament. "Otherwise the entire process will have to be reconsidered."

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had assured a delegation of women leaders that the Bill would be placed in Parliament in the winter session in November. "We have demanded that the Bill should be brought in its original form and all amendments and differences discussed inside Parliament and not outside", Bardhan said.