Left parties join hands to fight "corporate-communal" threat

PUDUCHERRY: Left parties today decided to resist the "corporate-communal offensive" of the BJP-RSS combine by joining hands to unleash united mass movements and campaigns across the country in the coming days.

Top leaders of CPI(M), CPI-ML (Liberation), RSP, Forward Bloc and SUCI(Communist) gave the call for strengthening Left unity at the 22nd CPI Party Congress which began here.

"There is no need to explain to the Communists about the menace posed by this neo-liberal-communal agenda. ... Only the Left can provide the core of the resistance to the neo-liberal onslaught and develop it into a mass movement. ... It is our historic responsibility to translate this vision into practice," CPI(M) General secretary Prakash Karat said.

"Such is the enormity and the magnitude of the rightwing threat that it calls for an inspired and united response from all those on the Left," he said, adding only a strong independent Left could there be "a realignment of forces favourable for a real alternative."

Acknowledging that the Left has become weak which has disappointed the people, CPI General Secretary S Sudhakar Reddy said "the rightist takeover has given a new challenge and opportunity to the Left to expose their game plan and mobilise the people to fight them back. It is a difficult task but only the Left can do it."

His CPI-ML counterpart, Dipankar Bhattacharya, said the Left would have to "confront the corporate-communal offensive spearheaded by the Modi government."

"We realise that the rise of BJP reflects a major political churning and a growing vacuum resulting from the people's anger against most established parties of the ruling classes - the Congress as well as the increasingly discredited regional parties.

"The most credible answer to the rise of the BJP will therefore have to come from a resurgent Left ready to learn from its own mistakes and restore the primacy of people's movement as the unshakable foundation of Left politics," Bhattacharya said.

Karat also stressed the need for forging greater coordination between the Left-led class and mass organizations working among different sections of the people.

Among others who spoke at the inaugural session were Forward Bloc's Debabrata Biswas and top leaders of RSP (Abani Roy) and SUCI(Communist) Provash Ghosh.