Communist Party of India (CPI) has flayed the NDA regime at the centre for arm-twisting the non-BJP parties ruling the States, thus posing a serious challenge to the spirit of federalism.
CPI national executive committee member K. Narayana squarely blamed the central Government and the BJP for launching an offensive on smaller parties, in their zeal to expand the BJP’s base. “The Modi-Shah duo is going ahead with the ‘carrot and stick policy’.
The centre is either wooing the states ruled by smaller parties with copious funds or coercing them to toe their line by blackmailing.
It is also unleashing a reign of terror on the leaders who have CBI cases on them”, Dr. Narayana said at a media conference here on Tuesday.
Left unity
He cited the case of Puducherry, where Dr. Narayana accused the BJP of seeking the merger of the ruling party into it, in return for funds for the state’s development. Terming it an ‘improper form of governance’, he saw a major threat in store to the centre-state relations in the long run.
Dr. Narayana felt that there was a greater need for the Left parties to bury their hatchets and join hands to thwart the designs of the ‘communal dispensation’ at the Centre. “Left unity has never been relevant than now, in view of the threat to secularism,” he stressed, recalling the resolutions made at its national Congress held in Puducherry a couple of days ago.
He also hoped that the CPI(M), in its national council meeting slated to be held in a fortnight at Vizag, would also decide in favour of accepting the hand extended by the CPI.
The Centre is either wooing states ruled by smaller parties with copious funds or coercing them to toe their line by blackmailing, he says
