New Delhi, Oct. 22: CPM general secretary Prakash Karat today dubbed himself a “moderate”, and seemed to partially endorse Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s views on the IT sector by saying he was opposed to “disruption of operations” in public utilities “as a form of protest”.

He said the politburo will decide next week whether to accept Bhattacharjee’s call for a ban on strikes in IT. He backed the formation of trade unions in IT but seemed to snub Citu by saying unions can’t be “imposed by outsiders”.

Karat fully supported the Salim deal and was open to divestment of loss-making PSUs. But he was set against FDI in retail, emphasising China is not “our role model”.