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CPI-M will back Congress government from the outside, says Yechuri

The Communist Party of India-Marxist will extend issue-based support to the Congress from outside if it takes the initiative to form an alternative government at the Centre, the party's politbureau member Sitaram Yechuri said today in Bombay.

The days of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government led by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee are numbered, and the Congress is the only party which is in a position to lead an alternative government, he told reporters today, but added that the CPI-M will not join the government at the Centre and the support will be on the basis of policies and programmes.

"The experience of the past few months of the first-ever BJP-led government has been an unmitigated disaster for the country and its people, which now face escalating prices and deteriorating law and order situation," he said, adding that the government has failed in all spheres -- economy, social harmony and foreign policies.

He said the rejection of the Justice B N Srikrishna Commission's report, which probed into the December 1992-January 1993 riots and the subsequent serial bomb blasts, by the Maharashtra government was condemnable and the Union Home Minister L K Advani giving a clean chit to it was unfortunate. This calls for dismissal for both, the state government, as well as the Union government.

Yechuri said the Supreme Court, earlier, had upheld the dismissal of BJP-led state governments, following the Babri Masjid demolition, on the grounds that secularism is one of the basic fundamentals of our Constitution. Having been chargesheeted in the case concerning the demolition of Babri Masjid, Advani, has now only confirmed his commitment to aiding and abetting virulent communalism, he alleged, and added that both the governments should be dismissed.

He further said that in the name of good governance the country is being subjected to a mockery of governance. "For the sake of the country the government must quit immediately and it cannot fool the people in the name of nuclear tests."

On being asked whether the CPI-M will accept Congress president Sonia Gandhi as a prime minister, he said it was too early. These issues will be taken up after the BJP government fell at the Centre. When pointed out that arithmetically it is not possible to form a government at the Centre without the help of Jayalalitha, he said it was possible and refused to elaborate further.

He said the CPI-M has not in the past let down any of the governments it has supported, be it of Morarji Desai, V P Singh H D Devegowda or I K Gujral.

UNI

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