Blaming the Congress for the victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies in the recent state assembly elections, the Communist Party of India - Marxist on Thursday said that the United Progressive Alliance government must take immediate steps to solve the problems of the common man, to prevent the saffron party from returning to power by utilising the people's discontent.

''The BJP has been able to gain power in areas where the Left parties have become weak, owing to the UPA government's anti-people policies,'' the CPI-M said in a resolution adopted on the last day of the party's 22nd state committee meeting.

The victory of the BJP and its allies in the Punjab, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat assembly elections was a result of lack of foresight by the Congress, it said.

''For this same reason, the communal forces had won in the Delhi and Mumbai municipal corporation elections. The minority communal forces have also increased their activities.

They cannot be ignored as they are trying to mobilise people politically on the basis of their religious identities,'' the resolution said.

Accusing the Congress of not fighting communalism on the basis of ideology, the resolution said the party actually associated religion with politics in the name of giving equal opportunity to all religions.

It said there was no reason to believe that the CPI-M's fight against communalism had ended with its support to the UPA.

Stating that the BJP has become more aggressive after its victory in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Uttarakhand, the resolution said that even before the Gujarat elections, the BJP had begun preparations for the mid-term general elections by declaring it inevitable in the backdrop of the Left opposition to the India-United States nuclear agreement.

"The BJP is now concentrating on pro-Hindutva slogans including the Ram Sethu issue. They mended fences with the Shiv Sena and diluted opposition to the nuclear deal. They are saying they have no objection to strategic relations with the US, barring objections to some clauses of the nuclear deal. But they claim that only the BJP and not the Congress can run a coalition government for a full term," it said.

Pointing out that prior to the Gujarat elections, L K Advani had projected himself as the leader of the next Lok Sabha, it said that the BJP's central leadership had recently decided to project Advani as the next Prime Minister.

"The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has approved this. Even a section of the media has made him the prime minister even before the elections. It is clear from this how active the BJP is to capture power once again at the Centre," the resolution stated.

It said that the communal forces identified Communists as the main enemy and not the Congress, because the former organised ideological campaigns against communalism.