The Hindu : Raghavan welcomes CPI(M) stand

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Feb 02, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Raghavan welcomes CPI(M) stand

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, FEB. 1. The Minister for Cooperation, M.V. Raghavan, has said that he welcomed the CPI(M) decision to abandon the proposal for a third front and support the Congress in the Lok Sabha elections. The Minister said this was the stand adopted by his party, the Communist Marxist Party (CMP), back in 1989 when it argued that the Left parties alone could not fight communalism with their vote share of just seven per cent. ``Hitler had come to power in Germany because the communists and socialists had declined to join hands,'' he recalled.

He was glad that the CPI(M) had now changed track. It had no other option. After shunning him for 17 years, it had recently invited him to become a Minister joining hands with K. Karunakaran, the ``least progressive of Congressmen''. That was the kind of change that the revolutionary party had undergone in recent years. The CPI(M) leaders were now accusing each other of being spies. This was something that one did not wish to happen even to enemies not to speak of one's former colleagues. The Minister said all wished for a settlement of the internal problems in the Congress. If matters would be settled with the induction of K. Muraleedharan into the Cabinet, that would be a welcome development. The Karunakaran faction had come round to the view adopted by the CMP that no change in leadership of the Government was called for. Mr. Muraleedharan, who wanted leadership change, was now willing to be a Minister in Mr. Antony's Cabinet.

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