Third Front government in offing again?

Communist Party of India (Marxist)[CPIM] dictates and guides the Left-ruled states like West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura.

Prakash Karat, 60 years old General Secretary of CPI (M)says, his party would decide on joining the Government if the Third Front came to power after the elections. “We would decide after weighing our options. If a non-Congress government comes to power, we would think about joining it. Joining the government is easy, but implementing the alternative policies is more important”.

Third Front is fighting the Lok Sabha elections with 10 parties in its fold. “The Congress has dissolved the UPA. The party has already said there would be no national-level alliance with any party. If the front was a 'maya', why should others waste time discussing it?” he asked.

Karat said the manifestos of the Congress and the BJP looked alike. The BJP was silent on its earlier promise that the party would review the nuclear deal if it came to power. Instead, that party had highlighted the Ram temple issue. The Third Front has proposed a policy alternative to that of both the Congress and BJP. The front would revamp the public distribution system in the country, doing away with the categorisation of consumers into the BPL and the APL.

On economic policies, Karat said the Third Front had suggested infusing more liquidity into the system to bring down the prices of essential commodities. “Containing the inflation alone would not pay dividends.”

Karat likes crime novels and reads Inspector Cheng series (by Qui Xiaolong), Henning Mankell’s books, Ian Rankin and Michael Connelly.

Karat was involved with student politics and was elected the third president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Student's Union. He also became the first President of the Students Federation of India between 1974 to 1979. He worked underground for one and a half years during the Emergency in India in 1975-76. He was arrested twice and spent 8 days in prison. He was also instrumental in defining the basic paradigm of the JNU Students Union constitution, perhaps the most revolutionary students union manifesto of its time.