CPM Polit Bureau meet to review relations with UPA

New Delhi, Feb 14: The top leadership of the CPI(M) will meet here for two days from Saturday to have a ''fresh look'' on its relationship with the UPA government in the wake of what it has termed the ''weakening position'' of the Congress in the country and finalise its future course of action.

The 18-member party Polit Bureau meeting here will take stock of the current economic and political situation when the people are ''increasingly disillusioned'' with the Congress-led coalition following high rates of inflation, an unabated spate of farmers' suicides and its own allies ''deserting'', over the last two years, senior leader and Polit Bureau member M K Pandhe told UNI today.

Another senior leader and former Rajya Sabha member Nilotpal Basu said that the meeting would have thorough discussions on the forthcoming Budget for 2007-08, for which the party has already submitted propsals to Finance Minister P Chidambaram.

Mr Pandhe said the party leadership will also discuss the Punjab assembly polls, the forthcoming polls in Uttarakhand and later in Uttar Pradesh.

''The party leadership will take stock of the new political situation following the drubbing of the Congress in the Municipal civic polls in Maharashtra, and the same outcome expected in Punjab polls held yesterday,'' the senior leader said, adding that the Congress' position did not seem better in Uttarakhand and UP. The Left would have to ponder over this ''developing political scenario, particularly on how it would go about in the 2009 general elections in this situation,'' Mr Pandhe said, observing that the Congress will have to change its economic policies and learn about the 'sanctity' of the coalition dharma, otherwise it would meet the same fate of the NDA government in 2004 General Elections.

The party Polit Bureau will ''review'' its relationship with the UPA government in the changed scenario, mainly because of the government's insistence on carrying forward its ''economic agenda'', despite stout oppostion from some of the allies and the supporting parties, he said.

Party veterans -- Jyoti Basu, H S Surjeet, West Bengal Chief Minsiter Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, General Secretary Prakash Karat, Rajya Sabha MP -- Sitaram Yechury and Ms Brinda Karat -- are among the members of the polit bureau.

UNI