CALCUTTA, January 4: Rolling out a decisive election campaign, the veteran Politburo member and the West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu assured the CPM workers "even in this Parliamentary election the LF would carry out its commitment to form a third alternative which would keep both the Congress and the BJP out of power".Admitting that the situation since the United Front Government was pulled down by the Congress had undergone radical change, Basu said the Left would "not evade the responsibility of carrying out its commitment in a desperate political situation."Giving clear hints that the CPM might join the Centre in case of the UF forming the next government, Basu urged his party men to tell people that "in a desperate situation the main issue would be to form a govt without the Congress and the BJP."Reacting sharply against the suggestions of Congress leaders Dr Manmohan Singh and Gulam Nabi Azad that the CPM must shed its "pretense of a national party and behave like a regional outfit", Basu retaliated reminding the Congress of a common Left decision to "politically isolate the Congress in the coming elections."Basu, who was speaking at a function to celebrate Left mouthpiece Ganashakti's 32nd year of publication here on Saturday, accused the Congress of trying to "convert the nation into a nation of corrupt people" so that the masses could also participate in the "orgy of political and economic corruption."The CPM leader said, "The Congress was collapsing under the burden of corruption and for professing unethical politics."Basu, whose speech could be read as a long tirade against the Congress, said, "Smitten by ideological and moral decay, the party was now trying to pass the buck and escape the consequences `of an unforgivable political irresponsibility' of withdrawing support from the UF."Asking the party workers, and the Left in particular, to expose the Congress designs, Basu, who "warned the Left against showing any complacency in a situation where the nation was threatened by the Congress, professing ideological decay" and the "alarming rise of Hindu Talibans, represented by the BJP," said: "it has imposed on us the responsibility of telling the people more effectively about the issues on which this election must be fought."Turning his gun towards the BJP, Basu wondered "how this Hindu Talibans are aspiring to get the Muslim votes after they carried out such despicable and barbaric act of demolishing Babri Masjid."Asserting that "the nation would have reasons to regret if the BJP came to power," Basu accused the BJP of "following the footsteps of the Congress and of professing of unethical politics."
