The Hindu : Cong. compromising on communal issues: CPI(M)

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Mar 06, 2003

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Cong. compromising on communal issues: CPI(M)

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI MARCH 5. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) today criticised the "compromising stand and vacillations" of the Congress in the face of the offensive by communal forces.

"A striking example of this tendency to compromise on communal issues", it said, was seen in the stance of the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Digvijay Singh, who had written a letter to the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, demanding a national legislation against cow slaughter and a ban on beef exports.

Claiming that it was at Mr. Singh's instance that the Madhya Pradesh Congress had taken up the issues, the CPI (M) said the Chief Minister was yet to take a firm stand on the "Bhojshala" issue at Dhar. And, it was also on Mr. Singh's recommendation that the Vajpayee Government announced concessions to the RSS-led agitation to allow "puja" inside the monument.

"Such opportunism and efforts to out-manoeuvre the BJP will only further legitimise its communal agenda.

It is for the Congress leadership to reverse this trend, which can cost the country heavily," it added.

The CPI (M) central committee, which met here over the last two days, condemned the "planned efforts" to rake up issues which could create communal tensions.

The Bhojshala issue, the mass distribution of trishuls in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and the "mischievous attempts" to create communal tensions in various places in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Rajasthan were all part of the "design to intimidate the minorities and to create a communal divide".

Even though the results of the Himachal Pradesh elections showed that substantial sections of the people did not subscribe to this divisive agenda, the communal campaign would continue keeping in mind the coming Assembly elections to Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Delhi later this year, it felt.

The committee also conveyed its opposition to war on Iraq and said the Government's statement that it has adopted a "middle-path" was a euphemism for tacit connivance with America's war plan.

The party decided to conduct its own campaign and struggle on four major questions including the Iraq crisis, "machinations" of the RSS and its front organisations, attacks on livelihood of the people and for universalisation of the public distribution system.

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