Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat on Thursday condemned the ‘police repression' against Students' Federation of India (SFI) workers who were protesting against a ‘blatantly illegal' admission of a student in an educational institution.
Addressing a press conference here, she said the Oommen Chandy government during its last 100 days had become a ‘lathi-charge government' as every day people raising legitimate issues were being attacked by the police. Demanding strong action against the police officers who attacked SFI workers in Kozhikode a few days ago, she said the Chief Minister should own up responsibility for the impropriety of the admission offered to the student. She also condemned the incident in which a bus passenger was beaten to death in Perumbavur allegedly by the gunman of a Congress leader. The incident showed the kind of audacity of police personnel to carry out such brutal action.
Ms. Karat also urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to make clear the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government's stand on the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia's poverty line cap as the latter had again justified his position that persons spending more than Rs.32 a day in urban areas and Rs. 26 in rural areas could not come under the BPL (Below Poverty Line) category. “The Prime Minister should break his silence and say what exactly the UPA government considered as the poverty line,” she said.
She said though six crore tonnes of food grains was rotting in godowns, the Central government was not able to universalise the public distribution system (PDS). The targeted PDS being pursued by the Congress was destroying the PDS, she said adding that Minister of State for Consumer Affairs and Food and Public Distribution K.V. Thomas, hailing from Kerala, knew better as he had direct experience of how the PDS could help the people.
To a question on Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid's statement that the government wanted to make Lokpal a constitutional institution, Ms. Karat said the new proposal had not yet come before the Standing Committee of Parliament. “One day, one Minister says one thing and another day another Minister says a different thing. Let the government come out with a comprehensive Lokpal Bill,”
she said reiterating that her party wanted a strong and autonomous Lokpal. She said the CPI(M) had rejected the government's Lokpal Bill as it was weak and diluted and was conceding the nexus between corporates and politicians.
To another question she said the draft Jan Lokpal Bill submitted by Team Anna had several provisions similar to the stand of the CPI(M) and some provisions on which the party had different views.
Ms. Karat also took strong exception to Mr. Khurshid's statement that if businessmen were put behind bars, foreign investments would be affected. Terming the statement a very serious matter as it was made at a time when cases relating to 2G spectrum allocation were pending before the Supreme Court, she said the Cabinet Minister's statement could be taken as an attempt to influence the court. It was an insult to the Supreme Court and was highly condemnable, she pointed out.
To a question on BJP leader L.K. Advani's Rath Yatra against corruption, the CPI(M) Polit Bureau member said the BJP had no credibility to launch the yatra against corruption when all the BJP-led governments were embroiled in cases of corruption. If the BJP wanted a corruption-free India, it should first make the BJP-led governments corruption-free, she added.
