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Fresh fight better than Sonia's embrace, claims Basu

West Bengal Chief Minister and Communist Party of India-Marxist politburo member Jyoti Basu Friday said there was no question of his party accepting Congress support to form a government if the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition at the Centre falls.

He was speaking at a meet-the-press programme of the Thiruvananthapuram Press Club in Kerala.

''In that circumstance, the left parties will go for fresh election. In any case, even if the Congress forms an alternative government, it is not going to last five years,'' he said.

Basu said the CPI-M's Calcutta Party Congress had decided to extend issue-based support to the Congress only to keep the "communal" BJP out of power. Also, the people did not want an immediate election. Though the Congress had surrendered before the communal forces, the Marxist party still believed the Congress was secular.

Referring to the proposed third front, Basu said at the moment it was not a viable reality. The United Front had broken up and all the constituents, except the Communist parties, had left it.

"We have to try once again to bring all these parties together," the veteran leader said.

Admitting that the BJP had made inroads in North India, he said Muslims and Christians were being attacked in several parts of the country. People should think about a new government that would preserve secularism.

The Congress, which had recently won the assembly election in three states, would be highly mistaken if it thought that it did not need anybody's help to confront the communal forces, he added.

The chief minister said that though the CPI-M supported the secular nature of the Congress, it strongly opposed its economic policies. It was hightime the Congress rethought its economic plans. Unfortunately, there seemed to be no discussion on the matter, he said.

UNI

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