'FB support to be reviewed if CMP not implemented'

The All-India Forward Bloc today said it would reconsider its support to United Progressive Alliance government if the latter failed to implement the Common Minimum Programme.

The Bloc was supporting the Congress party-led government to keep the 'communal Bharatiya Janata Party' away from power and if it felt the UPA was not implementing the CMP the party would review its support, AIFB national general secretary Debabrata Biswas said in a statement in Madurai, Tamil Nadu.

Biswas, who was in Madurai in connection with a party meeting, said unity of the working class meant unity of the Communist parties, and the AIFB wanted the Left movement to percolate to the grass-roots to provide an alternative at the Centre.

The AIFB, which has three members in the Lok Sabha, was aware of the 'bourgeoise' character of the Congress party but the party's national council nevertheless decided to extend conditional support to the UPA with the 'positive programme of keeping the communal BJP away from power and at the same time try to ensure that the CMP was implemeted,' he added.

Meanwhile, nine members of a splinter group of the AIFB have been arrested in connection with unleashing violence during the inauguration of a memorial to the late P K Mookiah Thevar at Usilampatti, near Madurai, on Sunday. All the nine members of the AIFB (Vallarasu group), who were arrested on Monday, were remanded to judicial custody, the police said .

Members of the Vallarasu group and another faction had entered the function's venue and pelted stones at the police after demanding that they be allowed to inaugurate the memorial. Police said cases were registered against 15 persons, including the group's general secretary P V Kathiravan. AIFB Genaral Secretary Debabrata Biswas in a statement today has accused the police of failure to cordon the area and allowing miscreants to enter the venue.