Call for a Left secular alternative

The first session of the 19th CPI congress opened to a call by the leaders of the four Left parties to build a "Left secular democratic alternative".

The session began with an address by CPI General Secretary AB Bardhan who said the Left's struggle for the implementation of the common minimum programme was only the "beginning" of changes seen in India and South Asia.

"The CPI holds the view that for a shift towards the Left, we have to strike out on an alternative path of development, beyond the CMP. We have to move towards a Left, secular, democratic alternative, which will be the real content of any alternative," Bardhan said.

With this objective in mind, Bardhan and other senior leaders of the party stressed the need for the CPI to regain its position in the Hindi heartland of the country. This was the line that was picked up by other Left leaders as they addressed the gathering.

But CPI-M General-Secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet followed a different line in his speech as he talked of the "vital responsibility" of the Left to not only project alternative policies but to struggle for them by "rallying wider forces".

All-India Forward Bloc leader D Biswas said the CPI was the only party that could give leadership to the Left movement in India, especially in northern India.

According to Abani Roy of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), it was possible for the Left to emerge as a force in the Hindi belt if each of the Left parties took the responsibility of achieving this goal.

In their speeches, all the Left leaders talked of the defeat of the BJP in the last general election, but recognised the threat of the saffron party staging a comeback.

The economic policies of the Congress also came in for considerable criticism. The RSP asked the CPI to review its support to the Congress, as it had done at its party congress about a month ago.

The mood was, however, dominated by the promise of seeing the Left coming to power at the Centre as had happened in some South American developing economies that had sent representatives to the CPI congress.