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It's time DMK decided on quitting NDA: Bardhan

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI APRIL 6. "The AIADMK, though outside the National Democratic Alliance, is with the BJP, and the DMK, in spite of remaining officially within the BJP-led alliance, is not with it," the CPI general secretary, A. B. Bardhan, said today.

"The AIADMK chief, Jayalalithaa, has the same reactions, same policies as that of the BJP. I do not see any difference between the two", Mr. Bardhan told presspersons here.

As for the DMK, the CPI chief said on many issues, it differed with the NDA. Sounding impatient, Mr. Bardhan asked how much time the DMK leader, M. Karunanidhi, was going to take to consider the question (of leaving the NDA).

"It is time for him to take the final crunch and I would like him to respond to his conscience".

However, he made it clear that his party would have a formal understanding with the DMK only when the latter came out of the NDA. Nevertheless, on the issues concerning the public such as the recent power tariff hike and the withdrawal of free power supply to farmers, "there is no objection to campaign jointly when the views of the DMK are similar to ours".

`Snap ties'

Asked whether he wanted other NDA constituents from Tamil Nadu to quit, he replied in the affirmative.

On the Centre filing an affidavit in the Supreme Court justifying the arrest of the MDMK leader, Vaiko, under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, Mr. Bardhan wondered how could such a submission be made by "small clerks or junior legal officers" without an approval from the top brass of the administration. The Government decided to file another affidavit only after parties such as the DMK and the MDMK protested.

The Centre's action reinforced his party's consistent stand that POTA would be used as an instrument for attacking political rivals. "There is no doubt that the POTA should go", he said, adding that already, there were enough laws to take action against those who actually indulged in terrorism.

Anti-BJP campaign

The CPI leader said his party would begin on Tuesday a month-long Bharat Jana Jagaran Yatra, a campaign against "fascist and communal" policies of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar as also against privatisation and globalisation.

Referring to the BJP adopting a resolution, at its national executive meeting last week, demanding an "immediate end" to the war in Iraq, Mr. Bardhan said this seemed to be the ruling party's "familiar method of talking in two tongues", though the BJP-led Government did not come out forthrightly against the U.S. - U.K aggression. If the BJP really meant it, "let it bring a resolution in Parliament (on the same lines)".

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