The Hindu : Front Page : Left assails Congress on nuclear deal, price rise

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Tuesday, Jul 15, 2008
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Left assails Congress on nuclear deal, price rise

Vinay Kumar

Launches campaign to explain opposition to pact with U.S.

Photo: S. Subramanium

GOING TO THE PEOPLe: CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat addresses a rally to launch nationwide campaign against the nuclear deal and the UPA government’s failure to check price rise, in New Delhi on Monday. —

NEW DELHI: The four Left parties, which withdrew support to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government last week, on Monday launched a nation-wide campaign to explain their opposition to the civilian nuclear deal with the United States and highlight the government’s failure to tackle runaway inflation and backbreaking price rise.

Addressing a public meeting, general secretaries of the Left parties – Prakash Karat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), T.J. Chandrachoodan of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), Debabrata Biswas of the Forward Bloc and A.B. Bardhan of the Communist Party of India (CPI) – highlighted the “unkept” promises of the government, “obsessed” with operationalising the nuclear deal.

“Horse-trading”

The Left parties also accused the Congress of indulging in “horse-trading” of MPs of small and regional parties to clinch the trust vote in the Lok Sabha on July 22.

Launching a frontal attack on the UPA government, Mr. Karat spoke at length on the high inflation rate, the “anti-people” policies of the government and the Congress ‘failure’ to tackle communal forces.

He said the Left campaign would focus on explaining to the people the reasons for withdrawing support, besides ‘exposing’ the UPA’s ‘pro-American’ and ‘anti-people’ policies, which had led to the unprecedented price rise and other problems.

The government, reduced to a minority after the pullout of the Left, and the Congress wanted to fulfil their promise to U.S. President George W Bush whose support base had also plummeted to record levels in his country. “This is their primary aim and not tackling inflation or price rise,” he said.

Describing as “unfortunate” the Congress pursuit of ‘pro-American’ policies, he said: “We will make all attempts to see that this government goes. After that we will go to the people; let them decide and till then we will not allow this nuclear deal to proceed further.”

The Congress slogan of “Congress ka haath, aam aadmi ke saath,” Mr. Karat said, had now turned into “Congress ka haath, America ke saath,” meaning that the Congress symbol of the hand was with America and not with the common man.

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