The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Coimbatore News : Vote to oust BJP-led Govt.: Bardhan

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

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Vote to oust BJP-led Govt.: Bardhan

By Our Staff Reporter

COIMBATORE, MAY 1. The general secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI), A.B. Bardhan, today urged the electorate of Tamil Nadu to vote decisively with a view to ousting the BJP-led Government for its four-and-a-half year long anti-labour policies.

Addressing an election meeting at Theppakulam maidan in the city canvassing votes for the CPI candidate for the Coimbatore Lok Sabha seat, K. Subbarayon, Mr. Bardhan said the BJP Government had created a record of sorts by having a separate ministry and a department for selling away Government properties. "Not all the Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) have been doing well, 260 PSUs in the country gave a strong foundation for the economical growth and self-reliance and they were being dismantled by the NDA Government."

He said the BJP was keen on selling them to Indian and foreign monopolies. These PSUs were not being sold to the sons of the soil but to the moneyed MNCs, he lamented. The electorate are facing a need of the hour, i.e., the need to not just fight elections but the evils of privatisation, liberalisation and globalisation. The so-called reforms initiated by the NDA Government had not benefited the country.

Having assured to create one-crore jobs in a year, the Government by closing down the PSUs and retrenchment measures, it had virtually accelerated the rate of unemployment at the rate of two per cent annum, it had downsized the Government employees population by nearly five per cent. The so-called economic and labour reforms of this Government were nothing but snatching away of the rights of the working class ascertained over a period of time. Liberalised market, cut in subsidies and slash in customs duty had hit the economy badly and the net result of the reforms was the mass suicides by the farming community.

"With no growth in private sector and no jobs in Government departments, the unemployment had already crossed a ten-crore mark."

Accusing the BJP-led Government of having failed in all respects, he said education had become commercialised, saffonised and the distortion of history in the text books was the contribution of this Government.

Despite being indicted by the Supreme Court, the BJP Government pardoned the Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi. The contentious issues such as communalism and Ram Temple are back on the agenda.

In a veiled reference to the AIADMK-BJP alliance in Tamil Nadu, Mr. Bardhan said: "the reactionaries and anti-people rulers have come together in times of crisis." Both the Centre and the State Government were anti-workforce, the latter's attitude was evident in the dismissal of the State Government employees for having struck work.

"Only a decisive mandate in favour of the secular alliance would help in putting the nation on a path of progress and make the country proud as a secular democracy."

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu

News Update

Stories in this Section

ORS packets for polling booths

Vote to oust BJP-led Govt.: Bardhan

`Education's mission is to improve quality of life'

NSS to create model villages

SIMA-CDRA takes up seed-based contract farming

Research Chair in `Tamizh isai' to be set up

Language learning centre inauguration on May 6

Award for TNAU VC

Action against commercial establishments

Around The City

In Coimbatore Today