UPA Govt is safe, says Jyoti Basu

Kolkata: Veteran CPI(M) leader Jyoti Basu on Friday said the Left parties wanted the government to continue.

"We want this government to continue. We do not want to bring it down," he said when asked whether the tussle between the Congress and its UPA partners and the Left posed a threat to the coalition's stability.

"We do not want to create a situation where the BJP would return to power," Basu said emerging from the weekly CPI(M) state secretariat meeting.

But he urged the UPA to stick to the Common Minimum Programme. "We will see what they intend to do on the points raised by the Left parties".

On the spiralling prices, he said "I am noticing that UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi is providing leadership to contain them".

The former West Bengal Chief Minister said that the Left and UPA will hold talks in Delhi soon. The Left parties, lending crucial outside support to the UPA, have decided to go ahead with their weeklong nationwide agitation on price-rise from July 13 despite the government conceding their demand of halting disinvestment in NALCO and Neyveli Lignite Corporation.