CPM general secretary Prakash Karat at a news conference in Delhi on Sunday. (PTI)

New Delhi, Jan. 20: The CPM has concluded that its support to the United Progressive Alliance government was in the “correct direction” set by the last party congress and asserted that the BJP continued to be its principal enemy.

The draft political resolution for the party congress in March did not forecast the possible scenario in 2009 — when general elections are due. But it underlined the threat from the BJP more than once with a hint that the CPM’s main political objective remained what it was in 2004: to thwart the NDA from coming to power.

Released by CPM general secretary Prakash Karat, the draft noted that though the BJP had not yet raised the communal pitch to the height of the Ayodhya era, it had the potential to channel the “discontent growing against” Congress state governments and the Centre to regroup and return to power.

The document listed the state polls the BJP had won since 2004 on its own and in alliance and warned that the elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh would be a barometer for the BJP’s comeback bid.

Labelling the BJP the “most reactionary force” in Indian politics, the CPM indicated what its base lines would be while planning the strategy for the next general elections.

One, the party differentiated between the BJP and the Congress. It termed the Congress a “secular bourgeois” party that “often vacillated” while taking on the communal forces. Although the CPM will continue to adopt tactics for “isolating and defeating the BJP”, the resolution said it would not have a pre-poll alliance or a united front with either the Congress or regional parties that have teamed up with the BJP.

The resolution said the Left would take the initiative to form an alternative — tentatively christened the Left Democratic Alternative or the People’s Democratic Front — to the Congress and the NDA. But it clarified that such an alternative would be based on long-term policies and programmes and not just on the limited purpose of contesting elections.

The party devoted a paragraph to the Bahujan Samaj Party, indicating it would have no truck with “bourgeois” parties that use caste to build wider alliances.

While there were elements to warm the cockles of the Congress’s heart, the draft resolution did not have a kind word for the UPA government.

The draft, which will be circulated among, and discussed by, party units over the next two months before being adopted by the party congress, explained why the CPM continued to support the government despite its known stand against the Indo-US nuclear deal.

The CPM also projected the avoidance of an early election as a victory.

“The party and the Left decided that it would do whatever is necessary to block the agreement. Faced with the political consequences of such a confrontation with the Left, the Congress and the UPA decided not to proceed further with the operationalisation. This is a significant step forward in the struggle to prevent the US from making India its junior partner.”