Author: Our Political Bureau
Publication: The Financial Express
Date: May 27, 2004
URL: http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=60026
The Left has decided not to sign
the common minimum programme (CMP) but only endorse it if its "viewpoint
is adequately represented."
While the final CMP document will
be unveiled on Thursday morning, the four Left parties will be making separate
statements.
Confirming the uneasy detente, CPI(M)
politburo member Prakash Karat said: "We may not agree on all points which
may be included in the final draft of the CMP. For instance we cannot be
a party to the demand for a separate Telengana state."
Mr Karat claimed his party has made
added emphasis in defending secularism, reversing the process of communalisation
of politics, strengthening the public distribution system, halting privatisation
of profit-making PSEs, restructuring of Centre-state relations, forging
an independent foreign policy and restoring the democratic rights of workers.
Other pet themes include support to the Women Reservation Bill, gender
and labour protection and boosting investment in the farm sector.
Earlier, a two-hour meeting at the
CPI(M) headquarters between the four Left parties failed to produce a unified
set of proposals.
It was then agreed to allow individual
parties to present their own proposals for improving the draft CMP. On
disunity within the Left, Mr Karat claimed that suggestions by the four
Left parties "are almost common... they only differ in emphasis."
The Left also demanded that since
they would support the government from outside, there is a need for immediately
setting up of a mechanism for coordination with the ruling United Progressive
Alliance (UPA). The UPA meeting decided to authorise Ms Gandhi to appoint
a convener and a spokesperson.
The draft CMP was given shape in
a meeting at the residence of Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday
evening. Also, Mrs Gandhi was appointed chairperson of the UPA.
The meeting was attended by Ms Gandhi,
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, defence minister Pranab Mukherjee and home
minister Shivraj Patil. The Left was represented by CPM politburo member
Harkishan Singh Surjeet and CPI general secretary A B Bardhan.
Mr Surjeet and politburo member
Sitaram Yechury had earlier met Ms Gandhi where they conveyed their party's
decision to accept the Congress's offer of Lok Sabha speakership to Mr
Somnath Chatterjee.
