The CPIML released its manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections on Monday and called for the scrapping of electronic voting machines (EVMs) and return to the ballot papers to ensure free and fair polls in the country.
The manifesto also accused the Narendra Modi government of trying to “convert India into a one-party state” by undermining parliamentary democracy, and aiming at a 400+ majority to inflict more damaging blows to the Constitution.
CPIML general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, while releasing the manifesto along with other leaders of the party, said: “We need to return to voting through ballot papers to restore faith in the parliamentary system, democracy and elections. We are seeing an electoral dictatorship and the world is talking about it. Questions have been raised on the transparency and trustworthiness of the EVMs.”
Bhattacharya added that though the Election Commission has imposed limits on expenditure by candidates, there is no such limit for the parties that turn the polls into a game of money power. He pressed for the “right to recall” elected candidates and the scrapping of the present law to appoint election commissioners.
The Left party’s poll manifesto banks on 15 subjects covering around 60 issues related to the people, including equal citizenship, employment generation and unemployment allowance, reservation in the private sector, scrapping of the Agnipath scheme for recruitment into the armed forces, dignity and decent lives for workers, reviving agriculture and rural economy and affordable housing in cities.
The manifesto also calls for universalisation of the public distribution system and stringent control of the prices of essential commodities and services, education for all, and strengthening the public healthcare system, minimum support price guarantee for crops, among others.
“A third successive term for the Modi government will be an absolute disaster for the Constitution and parliamentary democracy, for our cultural diversity and everyday existence. It is necessary to ensure that it does not return to power,” Bhattacharya said.
The CPIML general secretary also pointed out that the people will have to reverse the damage done to the country in the 10 years of Modi’s rule.
The CPIML is contesting three seats — Karakat, Bhojpur and Nalanda — in Bihar and Koderma in Jharkhand in the Lok Sabha polls as part of the INDIA bloc.
