On eve of UP polls, CPM plans to corner Centre over price rise

NEW DELHI: With less than a week left for the first phase of the Uttar Pradesh elections, the Manmohan Singh government seems to be coming under fresh pressure from the CPM to take steps in favour of the “aam admi”. The CPM will also ask the Congress-led UPA to make a policy shift and focus on curbing price rise, containing the agrarian crisis and reining in the judiciary.

The CPM central committee, which discussed the political scenario in the wake of the Congress debacle in Punjab and Uttarakhand elections, was of the view that the Uttar Pradesh polls would have a “major impact” on the political scenario at the centre. The Congress’ drubbing had worried the CPM, which wanted to wash its hands of the government’s “anti-people” policies. However, the desire to keep the BJP out of power has left little room for a change in the Left’s political strategy.

The only way out, according to the party, is to step up efforts to influence policy. The party’s message may be conveyed to the Congress leaders ahead of the UP elections beginning on April 7 at a UPA-Left coordination committee likely next week, after a gap of six months.

The Left is expected to take up the apex court’s stay on reservations for OBCs in higher educational institutions, an issue on which the CPM wants the government to take steps to overcome the stay. Demanding the setting up of the National Judicial Commission and a legislation on PILs to “counter the usurping” of powers of the legislature and executive, the party will ask the government to keep in mind social realities in the country.

With Uttar Pradesh polls around the corner, the CPM will ask the government to take measures to check price rise. Though the party has an alliance of sorts with Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party in around five seats in the Uttar Pradesh elections, the party’s strategy is aimed at keeping the BJP out. The CPM, which had opposed imposition of President’s rule in UP, sees the SP as the largest secular force in the state, which is heading for a six-cornered contest with the Congress going it alone.

CPM general secretary Prakash Karat, had recently has recently written in the “Marxist” that evolving as a centre-left party would be the only way for the Congress to retain its mass base that it traditionally commanded from rural poor, dalits, women and minorities.