The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : TDP, NDA fails on all fronts, says Bardhan

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 14, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

TDP, NDA fails on all fronts, says Bardhan

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, APRIL 13. The Bharatiya Janata Party had reached such "depths of depravity" that even the Supreme Court was forced to compare BJP's favourite Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, to the infamous Roman emperor `Nero', said the Communist Party of India (CPI) general secretary, A.B. Bardhan, at a public meeting at Dilsukhnagar in the city on Tuesday.

Mr. Modi had stood by and encouraged the massacre of over 2,000 innocent citizens and he had shown himself to be a "despicable person through his crass utterances on various issues". Yet he remained a favourite of top BJP leaders like Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee and the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, Mr. Bardhan charged.

He questioned as to how the BJP could allow Mr. Modi to continue as Chief Minister of Gujrat even after the recent strictures of the Supreme Court against not only his administration but also the "ideology of hate" that he has been spreading.

He said that having failed on the development front, having been mired in deep corruption and having spread the poison of communal hatred the ruling party was now trying to gain power by raising "irrelevant issues" like Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin and the Bofors scam to try and fool people into giving them another shot at power.

Mr. Bardhan said that the Vajpayee led NDA Government at the Centre and N. Chandrababu Naidu led Government in the State had failed on all counts and called on the people to defeat them in the forthcoming elections.

The recent stampede of poor women for sarees in Mr. Vajpayee's own constituency showed how hollow the slogan of "India Shining" was.

He said that it was a shame that senior BJP leader and Mr. Vajpayee's "election agent in Lucknow" should celebrate his 70th birthday by throwing cheap sarees to poor women and thus insult their poverty.

Even today there are over 30 crore people in the country below the poverty line who cant get one good meal a day; for a mere 13,000 railway jobs over 57 lakh people apply and farmers are daily committing suicide under the burden of their debts but the BJP and its ally in Andhra Pradesh, the TDP have no problem in proclaiming that "India is feeling good",

Mr. Bardhan charged.

He appealed to the people to vote for the CPI candidate in Nalgonda parliamentary constituency, Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy and Congress candidate in Malakpet Assembly constituency, Malreddy Ranga Reddy and defeat the TDP-BJP combine.

On his part, Mr. Ranga Reddy said that BJP's Lok Sabha candidate for Nalgonda, Indrasena Reddy had "run away from Malakpet to contest in Nalgonda but would again lose the seat". He ridiculed the TDP chief's accusation that the Congress alliances with TRS and the Left parties was "opportunistic and unholy". He countered, "How would one define the BJP giving up its Telangana stand and the TDP forgetting that the BJP is a communal party and both coming together only to cling on to power"?

Mr. Sudhakar Reddy said that people were suffering due to the anti-people and pro-rich policies of the TDP and NDA Governments and urged them to throw them out by voting for Left and Congress candidates.

Other leaders of the CPI and CPI(M) also spoke at the meeting. The leaders addressed another meeting Chanchalguda area later in the night.

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