PM may opt for simultaneous LS, assembly polls, feels CPI

PATNA: CPI national secretary in charge of the party's Bihar affairs K Narayana said PM Narendra Modi may opt for snap simultaneous parliamentary and assembly elections in the country this year.
In the circumstances, CPI would try to mobilize anti-BJP political parties to one platform to give a credible electoral fight to the saffron party, even as the CPI's bid to do the same by roping in CM Nitish Kumar into the fold around the same time last year had come a cropper, he said. "We had met him (Nitish) in February last year. He was receptive to the idea, but asked the CPI to take the lead. Then, four months later, he walked out of the three-party grand alliance and rejoined the NDA," Narayana said.

He said the anti-BJP political parties would "definitely" come together more fervently, since the situation facing the country has become "increasingly more critical because the integrity of the established institutions — CBI, Election Commission of India, Supreme Court and even the office of the President — appears to have been dented due to unjustified external influence on them" from the PMO.

Even as PM Modi had been talking about the need for simultaneous parliamentary and assembly elections in the country, it was not discussed at the level of the central cabinet and, therefore, it could not be taken as the policy of the "present dispensation" at the Centre. "Suddenly, the President mentioned about its efficacy in his address to the joint House of Parliament, in spite of the fact it had not yet been discussed in the cabinet," Narayana said.

He alleged the misuse of the CBI by the Centre to implicate and browbeat belligerent "opposition leaders".

Senior state CPI functionary Satya Narayan Singh referred to the preparations being made for the party's five-day 23rd Congress to be held at Kolam in Kerala from April 25. He said the state unit's district conference would be completed as prelude to the four-day state conference in Madhubani from March 17. He said the party's lawyer candidates would contest six seats in the state bar council elections, besides participation of around 5,000 party's Kisan members in the all-party Kisan Mahapanchayat to be held here on February 26.