By IANS,
New Delhi : The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Monday stated there was no question of its general secretary Prakash Karat resigning from his post over the party’s debacle in the Lok Sabha elections.
“Why should he resign?” responded CPI-M politburo member Nirupam Sen to a question by IANS, as he emerged from a meeting of the party’s politburo here.
He said there was no question of either him or West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee quitting over the election results, which have relegated the party to the eighth position from being the third largest in the outgoing Lok Sabha.
Huge electoral setbacks in the CPI-M bastions of West Bengal and Kerala have left the party with a mere 16 seats, down from the 43 it won in 2004. The four-party Left grouping has been reduced to 22 from 60.
The CPI-M finished with three seats less than the Trinamool Congress, its archrival in West Bengal, in the 2009 polls.
Nirupam Sen denied that the party’s reverses were because of the West Bengal government’s industrial policies and said the “election was fought on national issues and not on state issues.”
“We will continue with our policies,” said Sen, who is the state industries minister.