CPI (M) Politburo member Brinda Karat in Ranchi on Friday said the Aam Admi Party(AAP) had failed to respond with any accountability following the gangrape of a Danish woman in Delhi earlier this week saying it spoke in the “same language as the Congress” in avoiding accountability. She criticised Delhi Law Minister Somnath Bharti conducting raids on an alleged drugs and prostitution racket run by Uganda nationals in Delhi on Wednesday.
“The law minister's actions are vigilanteism. In future, will they start attacking couples as groups such as Shri Ram Sene did in Karnataka?” said Ms Karat.
She slammed AAP leader and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal for his reaction to the gangrape of a Danish woman near Paharganj in Delhi. “Before elections, they spoke the language of political parties accepting responsibility. Later, Mr Kejriwal spoke the language of the Congress saying his government has no responsibility in incidents such as the gangrape this week. Whose responsibility is women's safety, measures such as more streetlights?,” she said.
Declining to comment on the Congress' announcement that Rahul Gandhi will not be the party's prime ministerial candidate, she said it was BJP that was turning Lok Sabha elections into presidential elections, pitting a candidate against another. “BJP wants to project this election is like a presidential election, as they had tried to do with Advani in 2009. Now where is Advani?” she said. “There is a strong entiment in the country against both Congress and BJP. The BJP won in states such as Rajasthan as the vote was against the Congress. But several states have alternate parties that are very strong in the region,” she said.
The CPI(M) leader said the party would look at forming alliances with other left parties as well as other non-Congress, non-BJP governments as per the conditions in states.
Commenting on recent developments in Jharkhand, Ms Karat criticised the Congress-Jharkhand Mukti Morcha government led by Hemant Soren for having failed to providing for timely procurement of rabi crops from small farmers. “Farmers are being forced into distress sales to middlemen even as they have not got draught relief for the last two years. There is turmoil with over 20,000 workers being retrenched in Jamshedpur-Adityapur industrial belt,” she said.
She said that despite being a Schedule V area, Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act 1996 that granted power to decide on grant of minor minerals etc had been violated by Congress-supported coalition government in the state. “UPA II is considering amendments to forest clearance norms which will take away forest rights of tribals it itself granted during UPA I,” she said.
