Despite the unease in the party rank and file over the decision to vote alongside the BJP against the UPA government during the trust vote on July 22, CPM general secretary Prakash Karat on Monday justified the move, pointing out that even the Congress had joined hands with the BJP to topple governments earlier. Launching the Left campaign against the government a week after their bitter parting, Karat, who met BSP chief Mayawati yesterday and secured her support to try and vote out the government, said: “We will make every effort to defeat the government in the vote of confidence.” He said the Congress had no right to point fingers at the Left as it had voted with the BJP to bring down the V P Singh government in 1990 and later “conspired” to remove the governments of H D Deve Gowda in 1997 and I K Gujral in 1998. Karat’s CPI counterpart A B Bardhan went a step further, saying it was Rajiv Gandhi who had tied up with the BJP to pull down the V P Singh government. “We have never said that we are voting with BJP. We have talked to other parties, not to the BJP. If other parties want to talk to us, we cannot push them out. We are voting against the UPA because of its policies. If the BJP wants to vote against (UPA), they have a right to do so. Those who voted along with BJP are now teaching us. We will continue to fight communal forces,” he said. Having made it clear that the Left will reach out to all parties which can take a stand against the Indo-US nuclear deal, Karat said he was confident that more parties and forces will join them in their struggle against the deal. Sharing the dais with Karat today were Bardhan, RSP general secretary T J Chandrachoodan and Forward Bloc leader Debabrata Biswas. Leader after leader slammed the nuclear deal, but deftly sought to club the price rise issue along with the Left’s main reason for withdrawal of support. “The CPM and the Left can never accept India becoming a junior partner of the US,” Karat said, claiming that the government was giving priority to the agreement with the US and the “commitment given to President George W Bush” rather than tackling inflation. “The popularity of President Bush is at an all-time low. President Bush is in a minority there and our Prime Minister is heading a minority government here. A minority President and a minority Prime Minister are trying to make this country a slave of America for the next 40 years” Karat said. Referring to the Congress’s common man election plank, he said it should be “Congress ke haath, America ke saath.” “We were tolerating them (UPA) because we did not want the BJP and other communal forces to come to power,” he said. In an apparent reference to the Samajwadi Party shifting sides, Karat said “there is a party which is now supporting the government, but shared the dais with the Left sometime ago in opposing the deal. they will regret this.” He also spoke on the need for a third alternative, saying the country’s polity cannot be divided between two poles headed by the UPA and NDA.
