The Hindu : Kerala News : Call to strengthen Left presence in Parliament

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 02, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Call to strengthen Left presence in Parliament

By Our Staff Reporter

KOTTAYAM, MAY 1. The CPI(M) politburo member, Prakash Karat, has underscored the need to strengthen the Left presence in Parliament to put up an effective fight against the assault on working class interests.

Addressing a meeting held after the May Day rally organised by the CPI(M) at Pampady, near here, Mr. Karat pointed out that there was a steady erosion of working class interests during the last six years under the BJP rule. Whatever the working class achieved through decades of struggle, the Government was taking away, he said and added that the organised, unorganised and the traditional sectors were affected by it.

At no point in the history of free India, had small and marginal farmers taken their own lives in thousands, he said referring to the increasing number of suicides by farmers and pointed out that migration of the agricultural labour is taking place at an unprecedented scale.

The CPI(M) leader called upon all toiling sections of society to take the coming elections as an opportunity to register their protest against the policies of the BJP Government.

The CPI(M)) leader pointed out that the policies followed by the Congress-led Governments whether in Kerala, Maharashtra or Punjab was not different from that being followed by the BJP-led Government. On issues such as privatisation, rights of the Government employees, commercialisation of education, etc. their policies were the same, he said and pointed out that the policies of the Congress cannot become an alternative to the policies of the BJP.

He also took exception to the track record of the Congress in its fight against communalism and said in spite of the fact that the Congress was a secular party, every time it was confronted by communal forces, they had chosen to compromise. That was why the Congress had to succumb to communal forces in States such as Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and UP, he alleged.

The fact that the BJP has not yet been able to open its account in States where the Left forces were strong, points to the fact that only the Left parties would be able to put up an effective fight for secularism in the country, he said.

Mr. Karat criticised the Chief Minister, A. K. Antony, for misleading the people by condemning the CPI(M) in Kerala saying that the West Bengal unit was more liberal. According to him, the Congress in West Bengal was also criticising the CPI(M) there. The West Bengal Government was doing a lot for development, but this was not at the cost of the interests of the working class, he said pointing to the pro-labour stance taken by the West Bengal Government during the jute mill workers strike.

Earlier, a massive rally was taken out to celebrate the World Workers Day celebrations. Traditional art forms, floats, etc added colour to the rally. The CPI leader, Kanam Rajendran, the CPI(M) leaders Thomas Issac, K. Suresh Kurup, V. N. Vasavan, the district secretary, Vaikom Viswan, and others led the rally.

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