AGARTALA - Tripura Chief Minister and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) politburo member Manik Sarkar is confident that the party’s strength in its citadel West Bengal would remain intact despite the Congress-Trinamool Congress alliance.

‘The entire country has been looking into the result of West Bengal as the left parties’ result would boost the formation of a solid third front government at the Centre,’ Sarkar was quoted by the party mouthpiece.

Sarkar said that the Congress can be an alternative to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or vice versa but there was no alternative to the left parties.

‘Only a third front government at the Centre minus Congress and BJP can solve the miseries of the people and prevailing problems of the nation,’ he maintained.

After presiding over a cabinet meeting here, the 60-year-old leader, who was busy campaigning for the past two weeks in southern India and West Bengal, Friday left again for Kolkata to take part in a series of public meetings in Bengal before the last phase of elections May 13.

During his stay in Bengal, where elections would be held May 13 in the remaining 11 parliamentary constituencies, Sarkar would address seven public meetings and take part in a road show. Of West Bengal’s 42 seats, 14 went to the polls April 30 and 17 on May 7.

West Bengal has been sending the largest contingent of Left MPs over the years. Any dent in the left parties’ strength would affect their attempt to shape a Third Front government at the Centre. Of the 59 seats secured by the four left parties in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, 35 seats were won from the state.

New Delhi, April 28 : The subversion of justice will continue in the Bofors gun scam as long as a Congress-led government is in office, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) said Tuesday.

"The withdrawal of the Interpol red corner notice against (Italian businessman) Ottavio Quattrocchi at the behest of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is another step to bury the Bofors gun case by the Manmohan Singh government," the CPI-M politburo said in a statement here.

"Coming in the wake of the failure to successfully prosecute all those involved in the bribery case, it is evident that as long as there is a Congress-led government in office, the subversion of justice will continue."

The CPI-M asked the Congress leadership to answer to the people for "this cover-up".

The 12-year Interpol Red Corner Notice, or lookout notice, for Quattrocchi was taken off from the wanted section of the CBI's website reportedly on the legal advice of Attorney General Milon Banerjee.

The CPI-M also welcomed the Supreme Court decision directing a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate a complaint against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and other cabinet ministers and top officials for their role in the Gujarat riots.

Describing the 2002 riots as state-sponsored pogroms, the CPI-M said: "It is a welcome step, though a belated one".

"It is now imperative that the SIT investigate the complaint and submit their conclusions within the three-month time-frame set by the court," the CPI-M said.

"It is shameful that the BJP continues to defend those responsible for the carnage in Gujarat," the politburo added.

The CPI-M welcomed the Sri Lankan government's decision to halt combat operations against the rebel Tamil Tigers using heavy weapons and airplanes. It also said: "The LTTE has to stop holding people by force and facilitate their safe passage."

"The Sri Lankan government should allow the International Red Cross and other agencies to enter the affected areas," the CPI-M said.

State Name	Constituency Name	Candidate Name
Andaman and Nicobar Islands	Andaman & Nicobar Islands	Tapan Bepari
Assam	Silchar	Deepak Bhattacharya
Assam	Tezpur	Jiten Sundi
Assam	Barpeta	Durge Deka
Bihar	Nawada	Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi
Bihar	Paschim champaran	Ramashray Singh
Bihar	Supaul	Balram Singh Yadav
Bihar	Ujiarpur	Ramdev Verma
Bihar	Bhagalpur	Subodh Roy
Chhattisgarh	Surguja	Bal Singh
Gujarat	Dahod	Singhji Katara
Gujarat	Rajkot	Sudhirbhai Joshi
Haryana	Sirsa	Ram Kumar
Himachal Pradesh	Mandi	Onkar Shad
Jharkhand	Rajmahal	Jyotin Soren
Jharkhand	Ranchi	Rajendra Singh Munda
Karnataka	Dakshina Kannada	B Madhava
Kerala	Kasaragod	P Karunakaran
Kerala	Kasaragod	P. Karunakaran
Kerala	Kannur	K.k. Ragesh
Kerala	Vadakara	P. Satheedevi
Kerala	Kozhikode	Adv. Muhammad Riyaz
Kerala	Malappuram	T.k. Hamza
Kerala	Palakkad	M.b. Rajesh
Kerala	Alathur	P.k. Biju
Kerala	Chalakudy	U.p. Joseph
Kerala	Kottayam	Suresh Kurup
Kerala	Alappuzha	Dr. K.s. Manoj
Kerala	Pathanamthitta	Ananthagopan
Kerala	Kollam	P. Rajendran
Kerala	Attingal	A. Sampath
Lakshadweep	Lakshadweep	Lookmanul Hakkim M K
Madhya Pradesh	Morena	J K Pipal
Maharashtra	Palghar	Lahanu Shidva Kom
Maharashtra	Dindori	Jiva Pandu Gavit
Punjab	Anandpur Sahib	Mahan Singh Rori
Rajasthan	Sikar	Amra Ram
Rajasthan	Bhilwara	Pawan Duggal
Rajasthan	Ganganagar	Shpatram Meghwal
Tripura	Tripura West	Khagen Das
Tripura	Tripura East	Bajuban Riyan
Uttarakhand	Tehri Garhwal	Bachi Ram Kaunswal
Uttar Pradesh	Azamgarh	Arun Kumar Singh
Uttar Pradesh	Firozabad	Rajjo Devi
West Bengal	Sreerampur	Santashree Chatterjee
West Bengal	Hooghly	Rupchand Paul
West Bengal	Arambag	Sakti Mohan Malik
West Bengal	Tamluk	Lakshman Seth
West Bengal	Jhargram	Dr. Pulin Behari Baskey
West Bengal	Bankura	Basudeb Acharya
West Bengal	Bardhaman Purba	Dr. Anup Saha
West Bengal	Budhaman - Durgapur	Saidul Haque
West Bengal	Bolpur	Dr. Ramchanda Dom
West Bengal	Birbhum	Braja Mukherjee
West Bengal	Diamond Harbour	Samik Lahiri
West Bengal	Raiganj	Bireswar Lahiri
West Bengal	Barrackpur	Tarit Baran Topdar
West Bengal	Jalpaiguri	Mahendra Roy
West Bengal	Darjeeling	Jibesh Sarkar
West Bengal	Uluberia	Hannan Mollah
West Bengal	Maldaha Uttar	Sailen Sarkar
West Bengal	Maldaha Dakshin	Dr. Abdur Rezzak
West Bengal	Jangipur	Mriganka Bhattacharya
West Bengal	Murshidabad	Anisur Rahaman
West Bengal	Krishnanagar	Jyotirmoyee Sikdar
West Bengal	Ranaghat	Dr. Basudeb Barman
West Bengal	Bangaon	Asim Bala
West Bengal	Mathurapur	Animesh Naskar
West Bengal	Jadavpur	Dr. Sujan Chakraborty
West Bengal	Kolkata Dakshin	Rabin Deb
West Bengal	Kolkata Utttar	Md. Salim
West Bengal	Howrah	Swadesh Chakraborty

New Delhi, Mar 19 : Prakash Karat, leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), said that he would be open to talking to the Congress party to help support the formation of an alternative national government after a general election.

"We can do business with them and ask them to support an alternative secular formation, it's possible- why not, I don't rule it out," Karat said in a interview with NDTV news channel.

The CPI(M) is a major force behind a "Third Front" of smaller regional parties that aims to challenge India's two main national alliances led by Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The communists quit their support for the ruling Congress-led coalition last year over opposition to a civilian nuclear deal with the United States.

"It's not a question of untouchability. We'll do business with all parties but that business will be circumscribed by the nature of the mandate," Karat said.

Karat's statement signals that despite a bitter war of words between the left parties and Congress over that nuclear deal, they could once again try and form a government.

The CPI(M) was the biggest of several left parties that backed the Congress government for four years after the last 2004 general election, blocking many economic reforms.

Bhubaneswar, Mar 14 : The Communist Party of India (CPI) on Friday said that the Third Front would not announce any candidate for Prime Minister’s post before the Lok Sabha elections are held.
“The Third Front will not project anyone as its Prime Ministerial candidate during electioneering,” said A. B. Bardhan, General Secretary of CPI.
Bardhan said the question of Prime Minister would be taken into consideration only after the elections.
Bardhan also said he would meet the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) chief and Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to discuss his party’s participation in the Third Front.
Bardhan’s remark came a day after the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati’s senior representative S. C. Mishra said at the Third Front rally in Karnataka’s Tumkur district that the party wanted to make Mayawati prime minister.
However, the TDP leader N. Chandrababu Naidu said the Front will have a meeting with Mayawati on March 15 to discuss issues like its prime ministerial candidate.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) leader Sitaram Yechury has already met Patnaik on March 8 to persuade him to join the Third Front.
The Janata Dal- Secular (JD-S) leader H. D. Deve Gowda and TDP leader Chandrababu Naidu had also spoken to the BJD supremo on the subject.
The BJD, however, has refused to participate in any front before the elections though it will enter into seat-sharing arrangement with some parties, including the Left.

BHUBANESWAR - The Third Front, launched by eight political parties Thursday, will not project any leader as its prime ministerial candidate, the Communist Party of India (CPI) said Friday.

‘The Third Front will not project anyone as its prime ministerial candidate,’ CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan told reporters here, adding that the issue will be taken up only after the elections.

Eight political parties launched the Third Front at a jointy rally at Tumkur, Karnataka, Thursday. The Revolutionary Socialist Party and the Forward Bloc, which are constituents of the ruling Left Front in West Bengal, did not join the Third Front launch.

Thiruvananthapuram, Mar 13 : The Communist Party of India (CPI) on Friday announced that it was splitting from the Communist Party of India- Marxist (CPM) in Kerala.

The decision was taken by the CPI, after talks over who would contest the Ponnani seat failed. The party will now contest all 20 constituencies in the state during the general elections.

A CPI statement stated that the onus of the split in the state lies completely with the CPM.

Meanwhile, the CPM has called for an emergency meeting in New Delhi to discuss the situation.

The finalization of seat-sharing between the Left Parties failed when the CPI and the JD(S) refused to fall in line with the CPM’s move on the Ponnani and Kozhikode seats.

The CPI wants to field its own candidate from the Ponnani constituency as it has been traditionally with it according to the seat-sharing agreement between the Left partners. But, the CPM wants to field a ‘common LDF independent’ to muster support of Muslims outside the Indian Union Muslim League like PDP of Abdul Nasser Madani.

The CPM is also keen to contest Kozhikode seat, but JD-S has been contesting from this seat since 1980 and does not want to give it up.

According to party sources, CPI is now pinning hopes on intervention of the party’s central leadership to resolve the crisis.

Kerala will hold polls on April 16.

Thiruvananthapuram, Mar 13 : The Communist Party of India (CPI) and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) have rejected the Communist Party of India (Marxist) demand for the Ponnani and Kozhikode seats in Orissa.

The Left Democratic Front (LDF) liaison committee meeting here today failed to make any headway in the seat sharing talks.

While the CPI has expressed its interest to contest from Ponnani seat, the CPI-M wants to field a common Independent candidate to win Muslim votes in the India Union Muslim League (IUML) stronghold.

The CPI has also demanded the Kozhikode constituency, where the Janata Dal (S) had won last time.

As the seat-sharing issue remains unresolved, both parties have threatened to take tough action.

In Ponnani, the CPI and CPI-M remained adamant on their respective stands, as both declared their Independent candidates separately and put up poll advertisements carrying their pictures.

Similarly, in Kozhikode, the CPI-M rejected the JD-S stand and has started campaigning.

Leaders of both parties are scheduled to meet here later in the day.

AUDF president and perfume baron Badruddin Ajmal announced his candidature for the Silchar parliamentary seat - an announcement that angered the CPI-M.


‘How can Ajmal announce his candidature unilaterally without the seat sharing pact being finalised? This is not fair,’ said Hemen Das, senior CPI-M leader.

The AUDF, the CPI-M, the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) last week announced their decision to work out a seat sharing arrangement to fight the upcoming general elections. The front agreed to field mutually acceptable candidates in eight of the 14 parliamentary seats.

The front was expected to finalise which parties would contest in the remaining six seats later this week. Of the eight seats decided so far, the AUDF would contest in four, and the CPI and the NCP in two seats each.

The idea to form a third front came after the regional Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) decided to align with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the parliamentary elections in Assam.

Prior to the AGP-BJP pre-poll tie up, there were talks going on for a grand alliance of all non-Congress and non-BJP formations in Assam.

‘I am contesting the Silchar seat and I hope our other poll allies would accept my decision. Or else we shall have to think of other means,’ Ajmal said, a clear hint that he would stick to his stand of contesting the Silchar seat and was ready to break away from the third alternative.

The spat between the two main partners of the third front - the AUDF and the CPI-M - has already put considerable strain on the fledgling political formation.

‘I am the president of a party and hence other parties should respect my decision of contesting the Silchar seat,’ Ajmal said.

Another partner of the third front, the CPI, was also sceptical about the AUDF president’s tirade against the Bodo tribal community.

Ajmal in recent days was embroiled in a controversy over his remarks that the Bodos had systematically targeted the Muslims in parts of western and northern Assam.

Frontline Bodo community groups lashed out at Ajmal for his remarks and sought a public apology from him or else threatened not to allow the AUDF to campaign in the Bodo dominated areas.

‘This is not the time for provocative statements and all sides should show restraint,’ CPI leader Promode Gogoi said.