The tremendous role of corporate money in the elections is making it extremely difficult for the Left parties to translate people’s mobilisations into votes, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat has observed.
“But the Left parties are striving to present a policy-based alternative to the BJP-led NDA Government at the Centre,” Ms. Brinda Karat said at the Meet-the-Press programme here on Saturday.
‘Third front bleak’
Stating that the possibility of a third front staging a comeback as a non-NDA alliance looked bleak because of the differences among the parties in their respective States, Ms. Brinda Karat asserted that the BJP should be defeated if the country was to be saved. Ms. Brinda Karat said the BJP benefited the most from the electoral bonds, with a surge of 82% (₹1,000 crore) in donations it received in one year. These bonds were made non-transparent, she alleged.
‘Triple blow’
The NDA government had dealt a triple blow on the people in the form of demonetisation, GST, and unprecedented increase in the prices of petrol and diesel, she added. “The BJP is following with greater aggression the economic policies the Congress had implemented. It will not accept the Constitution. It will neither accept the Supreme Court nor minimum democratic norms. With its policies, the Modi government has ruined the economy. It is imperative that the Left parties and other progressive forces with a Left orientation worked together in the national interest,” she said.
The CPI(M) leader said the NDA Government had successfully lowered the value of the rupee. Nearly 20 lakh jobs had been lost in the unorganised sector due to demonetisation, which failed to serve its purpose.
Ms. Brinda Karat said since the Left parties did not accept money from the corporates, which was tantamount to quid pro quo, it was trying to bring about the requisite social change on the basis of policies.
Pat for JSP
Ms. Brinda Karat said Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu had forged an alliance with the BJP and then snapped it due to his own political reasons.
“In this context, we are happy that the Jana Sena Party has come forward with a pro-people agenda. We will decide on our alliances in the State and at the national level at the party’s Central Committee meeting in October,” she observed.