How can Modi justify encounter and carnage? : Left

New Delhi, Dec 14 (UNI) The CPI today lambasted Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for "rationalising and justifying" the post-Godhra carnage and Sohrabuddin fake encounter, asking all anti-Modi forces to pool their intellectual and material resources to defeat him in the state Assembly elections.

"We appeal to the electorate and anti-Modi forces to ensure that the Modi regime, which takes pride in the massacre of members of certain community and fake killings, does not return to power," CPI General Secretary A B Bardhan told a news conference here.

Mr Bardhan, who also launched a website at the party headquarters at Ajay Bhawan of the party's 20th Congress, to be held in Hyderabad from March 23 to 27 next year, said although the Left was a "small player" in the polls, it wished that the communal agenda of the BJP, dictated by the RSS, did not succeed this time.

Mr Bardhan, flanked by party senior leaders D Raja and Atul Kumar Anjan, said over 1000 delegates, including those from China, Vietnam, Laos, Russian Federation, the US, France, Asia, Latin America and African countries will participate in the Congress.

The website says the party has a total membership of 6,25,000 with as many as 35,000 branches across the country barring Nagaland, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.

The party would finalise the Political Resolution at a three-day party national council meet, beginning January 17 at Chennai. ''We will release the Political Resolution two months in advance among the party rank and file and the public in general, to seek their suggestions,'' he said.

''Three years back, we got as many as 265 such amendments in our Chandigarh Party Congress,'' Mr Bardhan said, adding, it is the highest policy making forum of the party.

''It is a huge party organisational activity involving tremendous democratic exercise starting at the branch level,'' he added.

UNI