Lok Sabha Elections: CPI hopeful Left parties will perform well in general elections

The CPI is hopeful that the Left parties will perform well in the upcoming general election and end up with an impressive number of seats in the Lok Sabha, compared to the outgoing House.

"It will definitely be much better than in the previous parliament. It will be an impressive number (for the Left parties) I hope," Communist Party of India (CPI) general secretary S Sudhakar Reddy told PTI here on Friday.

The CPI has one MP in the outgoing Lok Sabha. Reddy said the party would do well in states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Bihar in the upcoming polls, besides putting up a keen fight in Odisha, West Bengal and a few other states. "We hope we will improve our position in parliament.

We have high hopes in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Bihar and we are hoping to give a very good fight in Odisha, Punjab, West Bengal and Manipur," he said. Reddy added that the CPI had decided to contest around 55 seats in 24 states.

The party was trying to forge alliances or arrive at an understanding in as many constituencies as possible, he said. Pointing out that the Left parties were contesting together in West Bengal and Kerala, Reddy said the CPI would have an understanding with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Punjab and the Congress in Odisha.

An understanding with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in Bihar was yet to be finalised, he said. The CPI leader felt the Congress should have been more accommodative towards smaller parties in forging alliances. "I feel the Congress should have taken things more liberally, with a broad mind. They should have accommodated more smaller parties. Many small parties' votes will add to the final tally.

That is a very important thing. Unfortunately, in many states where the Congress is a dominating force, they are not going for this kind of an alliance," Reddy said. "They (Congress) have not learnt any lesson from the BJP's understandings and alliances in various states.

That is why an all-India understanding, which was expected, is yet to be arrived at. "But still, because of the failures and wrong and anti-people policies of the BJP-led NDA, we are hoping that the secular, democratic, Left parties will get a majority in the coming parliament," he added. The CPI wanted a broad understanding among all the anti-BJP parties for a post-poll alliance, Reddy said.

He felt the seven-phased Lok Sabha polls, starting April 11, would witness a tough fight, in spite of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) allegedly trying to take advantage of the sacrifices of defence personnel. Admitting that the CPI and the Left parties did not do too well in the last two general elections, Reddy said the strength of the Left parties was good up to 2004. However, the support base of these parties had not withered, he added.

At the same time, the influence of the CPI had not increased proportionately to the rising number of voters, Reddy said. "That is why we are unable to bag new seats. We are trying to get more downtrodden people, youth into our party," he added. 

-PTI