Terming Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) success against the Congress and the BJP as a “positive development”, CPI (M) general secretary Prakash Karat on Thursday said the future of the new party depends upon its policies on economic affairs and stand against communal politics.
While complementing AAPs’ success, Karat, however, blamed its agenda for riding the plank of anti-political establishment and painting all political parties and leaders with the same brush.
Karat said being a political party, the AAP should spell out its basics on polity and economics of the country. “Only then, will it be possible for the people to determine the nature of the party and the direction it will take,” Karat said in an article in the forthcoming issue of party organ ‘People’s Democracy’.
Maintaining that AAP has been “riding on the plank of fighting the political establishment”, he said this was a stance that “tars all political parties with the same brush”, including the left parties.
“The non-political and even anti-political origins of the AAP with its middle class/NGO antecedents seem to prevent it from discerning the ruling class politics and politicians from those like the communists who have always stood firmly in support of the working people and their cause,” Karat said.
Observing that AAP was yet to advocate policies which were an alternative to neo-liberalism, Karat said “there seems to be a tendency to gloss over these matters, perhaps due to the contradictions that exist in the social base which has rallied around in the (AAP) party”. “While AAP has effectively checked BJP’s advance and exposed their corruption and policies which were similar to the Congress,” Karat said adding Narendra Modi’s appeal to the middle class and youth was also blunted by the AAP campaign.
“However, in this context, the AAP’s stand on communalism and its attack on the communal Hindutva agenda were absent. Can AAP ever hope to present itself as an alternative without taking a clear-cut stand against communalism,” asked Karat.