We should have withdrawn support much earlier, should not have allowed government to go to IAEA on nuclear deal with USA: Prakash Karat

Cause of defeat in Bengal is loss of image among the people, wrong handling of contradiction between land and industrial development
No alliance with castiest parties like that of Lalu's or Mulayam's

Amidst criticism from a section of party about withdrawal of support from UPA government on Indo-US Civil Nuclear Agreement, the CPI (M) general secretary Prakash Karat is at calm and is not at all perturbed by the political venom spilt on him by insiders or outsiders.
While detractors of Karat feel that withdrawal was a tactical mistake that became responsible for the poll debacle in West Bengal giving opportunity to Mamata Banerjee to stitch ties with Congress, Karat opines that people did not like the image of the party lately due to mishandling of Nandigram.
The hardliner communist among the left front leaders, Karat was busy organizing party class and preparing for the extended Central Committee meeting on August 7-10, 2010 in Vijaywada, when he talked to the writer of this blog exclusively in his office to vent out some of the ideas relevant to the party’s health.
“Withdrawal was right decision and we should have withdrawn support for the UPA government much earlier. It was wrong on our part to allow UPA government to go on international forum IAEA,” Karat said.
This is the first time, Karat had said that the support from the UPA government should have been withdrawn much earlier and the government should not have been allowed to go to International Atomic Energy Agency at all.
Interestingly, Karat was not member of the negotiating team from his party with Pranab Mukherjee on the issue.
Congress worked to woo Samajwadi Party in the intervening period to switch sides to the government, even when the CPI (M) was hopeful of the third front gaining ground.
Karat’s opinion about this crucial issue will take concrete shape in form of document in August meeting in presence of almost 350 delegates and the role of those who believed and supported to give green signal to the UPA-1 government to go to the IAEA would be in under question.
“We also could not take the issue of withdrawal of support and the negatives of nuclear deal among the masses forcefully,” he added.
On Mulayam and Lalu, the SP and RJD chiefs respectively, Karat said that left will not have alliance with them.
“There is no question of alliance with Muylayam Singh Yadav or Lalu Prasad,” he said and added, “the party will continue with its policy of going with the left in Bihar and other places.”
“We will alone try to create our own niche in Hindi states,” he said.
On Bengal what went wrong, Karat said, “We are in power in the state for long time, and people expect more from us all the time, we tried to industrialise for employment, but the message went wrong.”
“CPI (M) was a party that consolidated its base on land reforms and we never wanted to give agricultural land for industrial purposes, but agriculture in the state had reached to its optimum, there was a need to find other avenues of employment for the youth,” he said and added, “but we failed to tackle the inherent contradiction in it properly.”
“People react when there is loss of image of the party and this time they reacted vigorously,” he said.
“We shall try to win over the people by launching special programme for the party,” he added.
“With one defeat we are not going to be irrelevant, we are the only political force who can stand against the capitalist or imperialist onslaught over the nation,” the CPI (M) general secretary asserted.
On the question over bickering in left front after the defeat in parliamentary and recent municipal elections, Karat said, “after such a set-back, criticism is obvious, but we are together in the Left Front.”
On minorities, Karat said that CPI (M) had been the only party who always tried to stitch alliance against communalism.
“Muslim families had gained considerably during land reforms, but their new generation needs employment,” he said and added that the West Bengal government was trying for the same.
While negating their truck with Maoists in Nepal, the CPI (M) general secretary said that his party has fraternal relations with CPN (UML) led by Madhav Nepal.
He characterized Maoists in India as “non-communist”, anarchist” and “not a political party in normal sense.”
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