CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury has said there “is no chance” of tie-up talks with the Congress at the national level and advocated state-specific negotiations.
“There is no chance of initiating talks with the Congress at the national level. We had said the political dynamics in different states are different. So, any talks on an understanding with the Congress have to be initiated at the state level,” Yechury said here on Sunday on the sidelines of a condolence meeting for former Bengal industry minister and politburo member Nirupam Sen.
“However, we look forward to an anti-BJP secular front at the Centre in 2019 in the post-poll scenario,” Yechury added and emphasised that to remove the BJP from the Centre, the country needs “a policy first and leaders later”.
Asked about tie-up talks, CPM central committee and state secretariat member Rabin Deb said the “primary target now” was to make a CPM rally in Calcutta on February 3 — a week after Trinamul’s public meeting of anti-BJP forces — a success. “Talks can be initiated with the Congress later.”
Sources in the CPM state headquarters confirmed preliminary talks had started with the Congress. “When something concrete is arrived at, we will bring it into the public domain,” a state committee member said.
Senior state Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member Pradip Bhattacharya described the discussions as “informal”.
Yechury recalled that the governments of the United Front led by H.D. Deve Gowda, the NDA by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and UPA-I by Manmohan Singh were the outcomes of post-poll, not pre-poll, alliances.
Yechury called for the ouster of the Narendra Modi government on four primary grounds — “economic crisis, communal polarisation, destruction of constitutional institutions like RBI, CBI, CAG and others, surrender to global imperialism and (India) becoming a junior partner to the current US government”.
At the condolence meet, Bengal CPM secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra said he believed that after the BJP’s recent losses in five states, the saffron camp was fast losing its base in Bengal, and Trinamul’s support was waning too. “All Left parties and other secular forces should join hands to fill the vacuum as fast as possible.”
