Rising prices to bring comrades to streets

NEW DELHI: CPM general secretary Prakash Karat, who described the trust vote victory for the Manmohan Singh government as ���pyrrhic and manipulated��� said the Left would take its fight against price rise and ���anti-people economic policies��� of the Centre to the streets.

���The UPA government���s economic policies are dictated by the World Bank, IMF and the US... All talk of liberalisation and globalisation is for their benefit and we in the Left will take the fight against it to the streets with the nation-wide general strike on August 20,��� the CPM general secretary said in Patna.

He said the government might have won a ���pyrrhic��� victory but its efforts to isolate the Left have come to a nought with several constituents of the UNPA including TDP, and AGP, besides the BSP and RLD veering towards the Communists. Assailing the Congress for using ���money power��� to secure a fresh lease of life after the Left withdrew support to the UPA government, Mr Karat said the ruling alliance had forfeited moral authority to continue in the office.

Mr Karat expressed surprise over the delay in convening the monsoon session of Parliament. ���They do not have a majority either in the Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha. Fully aware that they will have to take recourse to money power once again to push through the insurance and banking sector reform bills, they are deferring convening a session of Parliament,��� Mr Karat claimed while addressing a joint conference of the workers of the four Left parties on the Indo-US deal.