Saturday, April 9 2005 10:40 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) yesterday (Apr 8, 2005) decided to intensify a two-pronged struggle to "neo-liberal" economic approach of Manmohan Singh Government as well as communalism and work for a third political alternative.

The party's stand was brought out in the political resolution adopted unanimously on the third day of CPM Congress, the party's highest policy-making forum, late last night.

Earlier, in an hard-hitting critique of United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government the party has supported from outside for nearly a year now, CPM politburo member Prakash Karat told reporters that the Government's liberalisation policies had sparked an "agragarian crisis" and "there has been no ground level change for the rural poor".

"The peasantry and the farmers and the problems faced by them during National Demorati Alliance (NDA) rule remain the same ... the agrarian economy is on the verge of a collapse," he said in a hard-hitting critique of the Centre while briefing reporters on discussions at the party's 18th Congress, which yesterday unanimously adopted a resolution on "Agrarian Crisis".

"The delegates, who moved 197 amendments, did not suggest any major changes in the party's political line of conducting simultaneous fight against communalism and intensifying struggle against the neo-liberal policies of UPA Government," Karat said.

To questions on a third alternative, he said, "A viable 'third alternative' cannot be formed only by CPM and Samajwadi Party (SP)... so we want others also. We are talking to those non-Congress, non-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parties. But let the situation mature first".