Left parties lack practical approach: Oommen Chandy

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Accusing the Left parties of lacking a "practical approach", Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy has said that the Left had made a mistake in trying to topple the United Progressive Alliance-I government in 2008.

Asked how he saw the future of the Left after it lost power in the assembly polls in Kerala and West Bengal in 2011, Chandy said: "This (not being in power) will not be a problem for them. That is not their weakness. Their weakness is they are not practical." Chandy was interacting with IANS journalists during a visit to the agency's headquarters here last week. . He hoped the Left — which is the traditional rival to the Congress party, to which Chandy belongs — will learn from their mistakes and failures and change their ways. "I think they will understand. Withdrawal of support to the UPA government is one lesson. They can withdraw the support for political reasons but they went beyond this point. Tried to topple the government. That was a mistake."

"And second is the failure in the West Bengal and Kerala Assembly polls. They have to understand things and change." Elaborating on the "non-practical" approach of the Left, Chandy said that Kerala has lagged behind in the information technology field because the Left opposed computer usage and education in their emerging period. "Twenty years and beyond that period, the CPI-M was conducting agitation against computer education," he recalled. He said that when he became state finance minister in 1991, the Communist Party of India-Marxist workers damaged the computers, which had been ordered by the earlier Left Democratic Front (LDF) government and its finance minister, who belonged to the CPI-M.

"The computers came to office in my period. Within a day they spoilt everything." "They started an anti-computer agitation. Now, all these leaders are taking laptops, two-three mobile phones, everything. But lost is lost," he recalled. Because of the CPI-M opposition to computer education, youth of Kerala went outside for studies and employment, he said. "Our loss is there. Even now, they (CPI-M) are taking such a negative stand." "They have to change. They are not practical for Kerala. We are very much disappointed," he added.