New Delhi: The CPI on Wednesday said it would
undertake special campaigns and agitations in the coming days
to strengthen its dwindling base in the Hindi-speaking states,
acknowledging that national political intervention was not
possible without a breakthrough in this belt.
"Without a breakthrough in the Hindi belt, a political
party cannot make a political intervention at the national
level," new party General Secretary S Sudhakar Reddy told
reporters here.
Briefing on the outcome of the 21st party congress held
in Patna last week where he was elected to the post after
veteran communist leader A B Bardhan stepped down, Reddy said,
"We and the Left have to launch an ideological offensive in
these areas and unleash struggles on people's issues."
The CPI also planned to start ideological and political
camps in the Hindi belt to gear the people away from the
caste-based and regional political streams.
To questions on the role of regional parties and the Left
aligning with them to forge a Third Front, Reddy said the
regional parties have polled almost 50 per cent of votes and
were controlling governments in several states.
Noting that the Third Front experiment had failed in the
last general elections, the CPI leader said the regional
parties "do not have any clarity on economic issues. They
mostly follow the neo-liberal economic policies pursued by the
Congress or the BJP. We can have programme-based movements
with them and launch struggles on common people's issue. It
cannot be a mere electoral patch-up".
Reddy said his party would have to "strengthen our own
and Left base first, especially in the Hindi belt. Consolidate
and expand. We have 69 district committees in Uttar Pradesh".
The CPI would also work to establish a credible
alternative of Left and secular parties opposed to the
Congress and BJP-led political combinations.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, April 04, 2012, 19:23