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Wednesday, Apr 16, 2008
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National

Manifesto calls for strengthening Left unity

Special Correspondent

KOLKATA: The performance of West Bengal’s Left Front in the panchayat elections next month will have a bearing on the future of a “third alternative” being contemplated by the Left parties’ national leadership.

Their success will provide an impetus to the formation of a “third alternative” comprising Left, democratic and non-Congress secular forces having a common programme, and for this the Left parties will have to play an important role, according to the Left Front’s election manifesto for the rural polls released here.

The need to form a “third alternative” was reiterated at the recent 19th party Congress of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Coimbatore and the 20th National Conference of the Communist Party of India in Hyderabad earlier.

Three-phase polls

The three-phase panchayat elections are slated for May 11, 14 and 18.

The manifesto called for the strengthening unity among the Left parties at all levels in the face of the assaults on them across the country by imperialistic and reactionary forces and those of neo-liberalism.

The All India Forward Bloc that decided in December last not to contest the rural elections as part of the Left Front reversed its stand last month “for the sake of Left unity.”

The manifesto came down strongly on “the unprincipled” alliance of “rightist, reactionary and Left opportunistic forces” which, according to Left Front chairman Biman Bose, had no common ideological programme and was stitched up for election purposes.

The alliance in question is the one between the Trinamool Congress and the Socialist Unity Centre of India. The former had ruled out an alliance with the Congress that is still open to understandings at the lower levels.

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