Karat says UPA too without a manifesto

Karat,in an article in the forthcoming issue of party mouthpiece Peoples Democracy,has termed Mukherjee’s argument strange.

The Congress,the RJD,the NCP and the DMK are all bringing out separate manifestos. So why is Pranab Mukherjee concerned about a common programme for the parties of the Third Front? Why did the Congress not consider a joint programme with its elusive ally,the Samajwadi Party? he asked.

Karat said Mukherjee had even claimed that parties of the Third Front were not contesting enough seats to get a majority in the House. This is,of course,utterly inaccurate. The Left alone is fighting 150 seats and if the parties with which they have seat-sharing arrangements or election alliances are taken into account,then their number is more than 50 per cent of the seats in Parliament. If the seats contested by the BSP are taken into account,then the combine is fighting far more seats than the Congress party, he said.

He claimed that the emergence of a viable non-Congress,non-BJP combination has caused consternation in the Congress and BJP camps. The Congress declaration that it has no national level alliance has undermined the very basis of the UPA,he said. In turn,it has freed the UPA allies to look for different electoral partners in various states. Some of the non-Congress partners of the UPA are signalling that alignments will change according to the post-poll situation, he said.

He said NCP president Sharad Pawar has stated that the Third Front cannot be written off.