Left should lead govt at Centre: Forward Bloc

When the CPI(M) meets for its all-important Party Congress beginning on March 26 in Coimbatore, one of the issues on the table that it will have to discuss is a proposal from an ally.

According to Forward Bloc General Secretary Debabrat Biswas, the Left should now clearly state that they are ready to lead a coalition government at the centre with like-minded parties.

Not content with being a mere supporting pillar to a non-BJP government, the Forward Bloc is urging the Left to set its sights higher.

Till date, the Left has repeatedly rejected offers to join a coalition government at the centre because it would like to have a majority in any governing set up to be able to follow Left, rather than Left of Centre policies. In the three states of Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura where the Left is ruling now, the CPI(M) has a clear majority.

Biswas met CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat and urged him to lead a campaign keeping this aspect in mind.

According to Biswas, "The approach of the Left has been to lend outside support to a Union government to keep the BJP out. But this approach won't work. We have to be assertive and ask for votes to form our own government with the help of a third alternative."

The logic of the Left allies is: Third Front alternative forces like Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party, Chandrababu Naidu's Telugu Desam Party (TDP) or Om Prakash Chautala's Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) are all local forces and can't command a pan-Indian appeal. "Only if the Left leads the campaign and assert its stake for power will a third front get a national dimension," says Biswas.

The Left is likely to hold a meeting of the 'like-minded' parties as soon as possible to chalk out a joint strategy. But Karat has made it clear that the mechanism will not be vote-based but issue-based. The CPI(M) will have a detailed discussion on the third front alternatives in its Party Congress meeting.