Kozhikode:
Charging the Congress and BJP with harming the country's interests by pushing neo-liberal policies, the 20th CPM party Congress began in Kozhikode today with a call to build an alternative of Left and democratic forces to address the problems being faced by the country and people.
"People are looking for an alternative. The Left and democratic parties alone could provide such an alternative," CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat said inaugurating the party's all-India meet being attended by over 700 delegates.
Stressing that opposing neo-liberal policies would be a "central task" of the party, Mr Karat said both BJP and Congress were pursuing the same policies and there was nothing to choose between them as far as corruption was concerned.
Both the Congress-led UPA and BJP-led NDA have "failed" to address vital issues like price rise and food security and their economic policies had cast a huge burden on common people in the last two decades, the CPM veteran said.
"We, with other Left and secular democratic parties, will be launching joint struggle against these policies", he said.
He said the foreign policy of the Manmohan Singh government of fostering strategic alliance with the US as its focus was "inimical" to the country's sovereign interests.
Referring to the electoral reverses suffered by the party in West Bengal and Kerala, he said the party Congress would examine and identify the faults and correct them.
The Left were routed in the general elections of 2009. They lost West Bengal and Kerala last year. And this March, in the Assembly polls, they couldn't win a single seat. This is the reality before the CPM organised its Congress.
For six days starting today, party delegates from across the country will brainstorm at mostly closed door sessions to chalk their future path and finalise three resolutions that will guide the party in the coming years - the political, the organisational and the ideological resolutions.
As many as 734 delegates, 70 observers and 11 senior party leaders will participate in the Congress.