The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Left’s take on ties with Telugu Desam

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Sunday, Dec 02, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Left’s take on ties with Telugu Desam

Yechury rules out third front

‘CPI(M) may evolve third alternative’
‘Party on electoral adjustment with Congress in State’

HYDERABAD: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has made it clear that the party’s future political ties with the Telugu Desam will depend on the latter’s stand on economic reforms.

The party has acknowledged that the TDP is rethinking and reviewing, but the results of the review are yet to be known. “TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu is still defending economic reforms and claiming that the fruits of reforms should reach the poor which every other party also says,” CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury said.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the party’s State secretariat meeting here on Saturday, he said the party’s seat adjustment with the TDP during the local bodies’ elections could not be seen as pointer to the stand that would be adopted in the elections to the State Assembly and Parliament. Asked about reports of the TDP changing its stand to align with the Left, he said the change had to be seen in practice.

Ties with Congress

On the CPI(M)’s relation with the Congress at the State level, he said the party had entered into an electoral adjustment with the Congress to defeat the TDP-BJP alliance. The situation was not similar at the Centre where a common minimum programme was evolved and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was dependent on the Left for its continuance.

On the signals given by the United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA) partners to the Left, he said the CPI(M) was concentrating on evolving a third alternative, not a front, that would focus on combating communalism and fight against economic policies burdening the poor. “We are not for a third front that is a cut and paste job. It is neither stable nor does it have a programmatic basis,” he said.

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