Press Statement

The leaders of the Left parties - Communist Party of India (Marxist),
Communist Party of India, All India Forward Bloc and Revolutionary Socialist
Party - met on July 23, 2008.  They have issued the following statement:

On Trust Vote

The Manmohan Singh government has won the vote of confidence in the Lok
Sabha but the entire country has witnessed how parliamentary democracy has
been subverted.  Reports of bribery, intimidation and horse-trading have
been proved true by the cross-voting  and abstentions engineered by the
Congress and the Samajwadi Party.  It is by such means that they got a
majority.  In this connection, the tape submitted by a television channel
about a bribery episode should be made public.

The Congress leadership is mistaken if it considers this vote as one that
has provided legitimacy to the government.  The moral authority of the
government has been compromised.  The debate in the Lok Sabha has shown up
the sharp division on the nuclear deal.  This is no mandate for going ahead
with the deal.

The Left parties will continue the struggle against the Indo-US nuclear
deal.  They will step up their opposition to the anti-people policies of the
Congress-led government and strive to build the widest movement against the
failure of the government to tackle price rise, the problems of the farmers
and the rural poor due to the agrarian crisis.  The Left parties will join
hands with other like-minded parties to take up these issues.

The Left parties decided to extend their full support to the call of the
Central trade unions for a general strike on August 20, 2008.  They appealed
to all sections of the working people to participate and join the strike.

Sd/-

Prakash Karat                                 A.B. Bardhan
General Secretary, CPI(M)             General Secretary, CPI

Debabrata Biswas                            T.J. Chandrachoodan
General Secretary, AIFB                 General Secretary, RSP