Communist unity needed in principle: Bardhan

CALCUTTA, OCT. 31. Mr. A. B Bardhan, CPI general secretary, today repeated his call for forging Communist unity in principle to strengthen the left movement in the country, but said he had never proposed merger of the two Communist parties.

``I have never proposed a merger of the two parties. But I feel that the objective situation demands a Communist unity on principled basis,'' he said when asked for his reaction to CPI(M) general secretary, Mr. Harkishan Singh Surjeet's scathing criticism of his party.

In a three-page letter to Mr. Bardhan yesterday, the CPI(M) leader had accused the CPI of disrupting left unity and placating the Congress, but said the two parties would continue to work together on a ``principled basis''.

The letter also expressed ``shock'' at the CPI leader's evaluation of the CPI(M)'s updated party programme, and said the new document adopted last week at a special plenum in Thiruvananthapuram had not resolved ideological differences between the two parties.

Mr. Surjeet's letter followed Mr. Bardhan's Interview to an English daily, where he claimed that with the adoption of the updated programme in Thiruvananthapuram differences between the two parties ``have become a thing of the past''.

To another query, Mr. Bardhan said while left unity already existed, it needed to be strengthened and consolidated.

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Section  : Other States
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