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BJP, Congress are jittery: Karat

Staff Correspondent

Only Leftist policies can save country from doom, says Deve Gowda

“Lok Sabha elections not a bipolar contest”
Country on the brink of economic collapse: Gowda

— Photo: R. Eswarraj

Janata Dal (S) president H.D. Deve Gowda with CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat at a meeting in Mangalore on Saturday.

MANGALORE: The manner in which the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders are trying to dismiss the Third Front at every given opportunity proves that the new front is making the two national parties jittery said Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat here on Saturday. “This is not a bipolar contest,” he said.

Addressing a gathering of CPI(M) and JD(S) workers at an election rally organised to bolster the candidature of B. Madhava the CPI(M) nominee for the Dakshina Kannada Lok Sabha constituency, Mr. Karat dismissed the recent charge made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the Third Front would split secular votes in the country so as to favour the BJP.

“In Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, the BJP has struggled and failed to rope in alliance partners. In Orissa, its partner the Biju Janata Dal has deserted the BJP for its communal programme and joined the Third Front,” he pointed out and added that the signs were all pointing in favour of a “non-Congress secular alternative.”

He reiterated that the upcoming polls would be fought on four major promises by his party: Pro-people policies, a secular polity, independent foreign policy and a concrete programme for the uplift of socially stigmatised and backward sections.

Slamming the Congress for being soft on Hindutva extremism and inexplicably hard in the pursuance of anti-poor and neo-liberal economic policies, he pointed out that the Congress had not banned the Bajrang Dal despite the organisation’s open claims that it was responsible for the communal pogrom in Orissa. “On the economic front also the Congress did not show any interest in adopting the recommendations to end the agrarian crisis put forth by the M.S. Swaminathan commission,” he said.

Reinforcing the fact that the main strength of the CPI(M) in Dakshina Kannada came from unorganised workers, particularly the four lakh beedi workers, owing to its many labour unions, Mr. Karat said the beedi and construction workers of the region should vote for Mr. Madhava in order to establish a pro-labour and anti-exploitation government at the Centre.

Taking over from Mr. Karat, JD(S) president and former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda said the country was on the brink of economic and social collapse. “Only a Leftist economic and social policy can arrest the slide that we are witnessing as a nation,” he said.

Suggesting that the Third Front was still anybody’s ticket to the Prime Minister’s chair, Mr. Gowda stressed that there were several Prime Ministerial candidates within this pre-poll political conglomeration. “Who becomes the Prime Minister is hardly a matter of discussion within the Third Front. We are hard at work to devise a strategy to arrest the growth of Hindutva,” he said.

Raising more local issues, Mr. Madhava said fertile farmland was being acquired by force in the name of the Mangalore Special Economic Zone by the real estate mafia. He also pointed to the bad rail and road connectivity in the region.

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