Left leaders meet to review poll outcome

New Delhi, May 17 (PTI) After one of their worst ever
performances in the general elections, leaders of the Left
parties met here Sunday and decided to work as a "responsible"
opposition in Parliament.

The four parties, whose total tally in Parliament
plummeted from 61 in 2004 to 24, also decided to continue to
work in cooperation with their non-Congress non-BJP allies
like Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP),All India Anna Dravida Munetra
Kazhagam (AIADMK),Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Janata Dal-Secular
(JD-S) and Biju Janata Dal (BJD).

The meeting was attended by Communist Party of
India-Marxist's (CPI-M) Prakash Karat, S R Pillai and Sitaram
Yechury, Communist Party of India's (CPI) A B Bardhan and D
Raja, Revolutionary Socialist Party's (RSP) T J Chandrachoodan
and Forward Bloc's Debabrata Biswas and D Devarajan.

"The Left will work as a responsible opposition in
Parliament. The Left parties will continue our cooperation
with the non-Congress, non-BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party)
allies," the parties said in a statement read out by Bardhan
after the 90-minute meeting.

While Karat did not respond to questions by the waiting
media, Bardhan said the four Left parties would individually
review the reverses suffered by them and then meet again to
"come to a collective assessment on how to over the
shortcomings and move ahead."

The Left parties, which faced major rout in their
bastions of eastern and southern states of West Bengal and
Kerala, respectively, would go for assembly elections in these
states two years from now.

Asked whether their opposition to economic reform
measures of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government
was rejected by the people, the veteran CPI leader said,
"People overwhelmingly voted for them does not mean that all
wrongs have become right."

He said the Left parties would continue to raise the
issues of the poor and downtrodden and "take our understanding
to the people".

Asked whether CPI(M)'s "high-handedness" had led to this
rout, Bardhan said "I don't think so".

Biswas said the parties would review their performance at
their own meetings and then meet among themselves to come to a
"collective conclusion" and decide on how to move ahead.

"We are discussing the reasons of the debacle. We will
go through the reasons why we lost. All the parties will also
individually need to discuss the issue," Chandrachoodan said.
reporters before the meeting. PTI