The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Mandate against anti-people policies: Varadarajan

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 15, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Mandate against anti-people policies: Varadarajan

By S. Dorairaj

CHENNAI, MAY 14. The central committee of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) at a meeting in New Delhi on May 16 and 17 will evolve a strategy which the party units will adopt in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, where ruling parties suffered a setback in the Lok Sabha elections, the State secretary, N.Varadarajan, said today.

Shortly after a State secretariat meeting, he told The Hindu here that the committee, besides finalising its stand on its role in the new Central Government, would review the poll outcome in the two States, where the Left, democratic and secular parties registered a spectacular victory.

Dubbing the Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa's claim that the outcome was not a verdict against her Government, a mockery, he said the drubbing the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK)— Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) combine received was an indication of the voters' indignation against the "anti-people policies of the Central Government and the State Government."

Mr.Varadarajan said Ms.Jayalalithaa, without attempting to get herself absolved, should own moral responsibility for the combine's poor show in 224 of the 234 Assembly segments, which fell under 40 Lok Sabha constituencies. But the CPI (M) would neither demand her resignation nor favour invoking Article 356 against the AIADMK Government at this stage, he said.

Meanwhile, the State secretariat adopted a resolution claiming that the verdict was against the "communal agenda of the BJP, the wrong economic policies of the National Democratic Alliance Government and the draconian Acts, including the Prevention of Terrorism Act introduced by it."

The verdict also came as a blow to the Jayalalithaa Government's "mismanagement" during the last three years, it said. It amounted to condemning the "repression unleashed against government employees and teachers by invoking the Essential Services Maintenance Act and the Tamil Nadu Essential Serivces Maintenance Act, mishandling of issues of transport employees and other workers, introduction of anti-conversion law, ban on animal sacrifice in temples, launching 73 defamation cases against journalists, foisting cases on leaders of Opposition parties and arresting them and disrupting the public distribution system."

Ms. Jayalalithaa's statement betrayed her "egoism and reluctance to accept the people's verdict."

The State CPI (M) secretariat thanked the electorate and activists of the constituents of the Democratic Progressive Alliance for ensuring victory in the polls.

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