Sack Kesri to avoid elections: CPI-M

Sacking Sitaram Kesri as Congress president is the only way to resolve the deadlock between that party and the United Front, a section of Left leaders feel.

"As there is no questioning of changing the UF leadership, this is the only way to avoid elections," a top Communist Party of India functionary said.

However, the Communist Party of India-Marxist leaders are not ready to demand such a change. "How can we ask for a change in the Congress leadership?" asked CPI-M Politburo member Sitaram Yechuri.

"The matter is not in our hands -- but the Congress is in a bad shape," says CPI-M general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet. The CPI-M, he said, would wait till the Congress Working Committee meeting before taking any decisions.

The Left parties, meanwhile, has resolved to strengthen the UF under Deve Gowda's leadership ''to consolidate secular forces in the country.''

Meeting for the first time after the UF collapse, the CPI, the CPI-M, the All India Forward Bloc and the Revolutionary Socialist Party made a close assessment of the political situation, and agreed to make a 'common stand' through the crisis.