CPI(M) to finalise poll strategy by January-end

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, JAN. 4.The CPI(M) would finalise its electoral strategy for the coming Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu by January-end.

The party's state committee will meet for three days in Chennai from January 28 to formalise its position on the issue, sources in the CPI(M) said today, at the end of a two-day meeting of its executive.

The meeting, which was attended by the CPI(M) general secretary, Mr. Harkishan Singh Surjeet yesterday and other senior leaders, including the politburo member from Tamil Nadu, Mr. R. Umanath and the state secretary, Mr. N. Sankariah, has cleared the decks for continuation of the `understanding' amongst the left, democratic and secular forces `to defeat the DMK-BJP combination' at any cost.

Sources said the party's three-day central committee meeting at Bhubhaneshwar from January 20 will broadly firm up the CPI(M)'s poll strategies for all the five states going to Assembly elections this year. Based on that, the state-specific strategy for Tamil Nadu will be given a concrete shape by the end of this month, they added.

The sources also clarified that the CPI(M) was not shying away from the question of power-sharing, that has already been flogged by the TMC and later by the Pradesh Congress(I). ``Our approach is that we do not want this issue to come in the way of strengthening all the secular forces against the DMK-BJP combine in the run-up to the polls,'' the sources added.

Expressing solidarity with the proposed country-wide agitation by the left unions of agricultural workers in early February against the ``wrong economic policies'' of the Central and State Governments that have terribly depressed agriculture commodity prices, the CPI(M) said, in Tamil Nadu the picketing will be organised before all Central Government offices at the taluk and panchayat union levels for three days from February 5.

CBI probe demanded

Adverting to the recent bomb attack in a mosque in Palayamkottai in Tirunelveli district, in which one Abdul Rasheed was killed, the CPI(M) said, the subsequent investigation claims by the police that the deceased was killed by his own son due to domestic differences, `sounded incredible', as inquiries by other groups including the CPI(M)'s district functionaries has raised several doubts about the gruesome murder. Hence the state government should order a CBI probe into the incident, it urged.

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Section  : Southern States
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