Kerala - Alappuzha   

Candidates differ on communal issue

By Our Staff Reporter

ALAPPUZHA, APRIL 15. The UDF candidate in Alappuzha Lok Sabha constituency, V. M. Sudheeran, and the LDF candidate, K. S. Manoj, have said the NDA Government at the Centre and the BJP Governments in various States have communalised the administration.

Participating in a discussion organised by the Alappuzha Press Club and the ACV here today, they said the secular values, which bound the nation together, were under threat in the NDA rule.

The BJP candidate, V. Padmanabhan, said the Congress and the CPI (M) had joined hands with various communal organisations whenever they got opportunity to protect their vested interests. He said they had veiled their communalism under the cloak of secularism.

Mr. Sudheeran said the recent verdict of the Supreme Court in the Best Bakery case proved that the Gujarat administration had failed to control the incidents, which took place during the communal riots, which occurred there. He said the weakening of the Congress had endangered the secularism.

Mr. Sudheeran said there was no place for a third front in the coming elections. The coming election was a fight between the NDA and the alliance lead by the Congress in the national level, he said. In the fight, the secular forces should rally behind the Congress, he said. He said it was the blind opposition of the Left parties towards the Congress, which lead to the growth of the BJP.

The LDF candidate, Dr. Manoj said the Congress was also following a policy of appeasing communal forces to come to power. The party is following a soft Hindutva approach in the North India. He said the Left forces needed to be strengthened to preserve secularism.

Dr. Manoj said the economic policy of the Union Government had adversely affected the common man in the country. The PSUs were being handed over to the private sector while incentives were being doled out to foreign investors, he said.

Mr. Padmanabhan said the UDF and the LDF were pampering the IUML and the Kerala Congress in the State, which he said were both communal organisations. While the communal policies of the IUML had affected the education sector, the policy of appeasement of some other sections had resulted in encroachment of the forests of the state, he said.

As a part of its appeasement policies, the state government had renamed the encroachers of forests as settlers and made encroachments lawful, he said. He said the NDA was instrumental in A.P.J. Abul Kalam becoming the President, which was an example of its secular credentials.

The SUCI candidate, Parthasarathi Varma, said the BJP, the Congress and the Left parties were having similar economic policies. He said the liberalisation started by the Narasimha Rao Government was continued by the Deve Gowda Government, which included the Left parties and the constituents of the present NDA. He said the need of the hour was a people's alternative.

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