People's Front meets to formulate agenda

People's Front meets to formulate agenda
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

NEW DELHI, APRIL 3: Leaders of the People's Front today met for the first time after its formation last month and began the task of formulating a common agenda for which they set up a five-member committee as well.

The committee, comprising former prime ministers V.P. Singh and H.D.Deve Gowda, CPI(M) general secretary H.K.S. Surjeet and his CPI counterpart A.B. Bardhan, and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, is expected tofinalise the work of preparing the agenda -- the broad contours of which were discussed today -- by April 17. On the very same day, the front will hold its first major public rally in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh.

The Front leaders also decided on joining hands with other Opposition parties like the Congress and discuss ways of putting pressure on the Vajpayee Government in Parliament to resign in the wake of the Tehelka expose.

Former West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu, Revolutionary Socialist Party leader Abani Roy and Debabrata Biswas of the Forward Bloc were also present during the meeting. However, there was no representative from the Rashtriya Janata Dal present but the front leaders said it was because the party had prior engagements.

When asked whether some of BJP's ``secular'' allies, like the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), would also be roped in to join the campaign, Surjeet said the TDP had not shown any inclination so far to make common cause with them. He added the agenda will be designed in such a way that any party which intended to join the front would have to demonstrate some amount of commitment. ``We don't want the front to be a hotch-potch arrangement,'' Surjeet said and added in Assam, the Front will have no truck with the Asom Gana Parishad which is in the process of tying up with the BJP.