NEW DELHI, Jan 15: Admitting a change in attitude, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet today indicated that his party was keeping its options open on joining a United Front (UF) Government.Addressing a Meet-the-Press programme here, Surjeet said a decision on joining the Government will be taken only after the elections. But ``there has been a change in thinking,'' he admitted.
He said earlier the CPM had refused to join the party. Now the party was not saying ``no'', he added. He did not see the possibility of the UF seeking Congress support to form a Government, or backing that party after the elections. ``There is no question of going along with them,'' he said.
Asked about the CPM's ``enemy number one,'' he indicated that it was tough to pick between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress.
Surjeet criticised the BJP for its ``communal'' agenda, which ignored the country's diversity. He ridiculed its claim of being a principled party, citing
the inclusion of defectors from other parties into the Kalyan Singh Government in Uttar Pradesh.
He also criticised it for advocating a presidential form of Government, which in his opinion was less democratic.
Surjeet was hard on the Congress as well, and said the entry of Sonia Gandhi will not bring about any ``radical change''. While ``sympathising'' with the party, he said it had failed to draw any lesson from its mistakes in the past.
He lashed out at the Congress for toppling the UF Government on a non-issue like the Jain Commission report. The Congress wanted a share in power and when the UF declined, the party withdrew support, he said.
The CPM leader played down differences within the UF constituents, dismissing them as a normal election-time phenomenon. He stressed that no party had deserted the Front.
On reports that Mulayam Singh Yadav would not put up candidates in a constituency if Sonia or Priyanka contested from there, Surjeet wondered if the media had reported the Samajwadi Party
(SP) leader correctly.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
