KOTTAYAM: CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury has made it clear that victory for the Left in Kerala and West Bengal will in no way create any instability for the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government at the Centre.

Speaking at a Meet-the-Press programme here on Sunday, Mr. Yechury said the electoral outcome of the State elections were significant for national politics, as a victory for the Left in West Bengal and Kerala would strengthen the Left in pressurising the UPA to implement the Common Minimum Programme and adopt pro-people policies. However, this will not create any instability for the UPA, he added.

In Kerala a slow and perceptible movement for change was building up, he said and added that there was a high degree of discontentment among the people. He also criticised the United Democratic Front (UDF) propaganda on the perceived pro-reform stance of the CPI(M) in West Bengal against the anti-reform stand in Kerala. Development is not a valueless concept, but a value-loaded one and the question of for whom and at what cost were important, he said. "The CPI(M) is pro-reform if the reform is pro-people and anti-reform if the reform is anti-people," Mr Yechury said.

According to him, information technology was a vehicle for economic development, especially in a State such as Kerala and it was precisely in this area that the UDF had failed. But this will be the trajectory the Left Democratic Front (LDF) would like to take Kerala into, he said.

To another question, Mr. Yechury said the CPI(M) was not planning to turn the LDF in Kerala into a Left Front. The formula for seat-sharing in the LDF was arrived at in 1982 and so many things had happened to the coalition partners during the period. Hence the corrections during the seat sharing, he said. "The democratic process has strengthened the Left in the State and the Left has strengthened the democratic process," he said.

At the national level, one of the important features of the State elections was the complete absence of the BJP as a major player, Mr. Yechury said. The search for an alternative is not between the Congress and the BJP, but the Congress and the Left, he said.

In West Bengal, the Left is set to win a record seventh term and Assam is going in for a hung Assembly with advantage to Congress. It is too early to predict the outcome in Tamil Nadu, he said.

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