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Congress should clarify its stand: CPI

Special Correspondent

BJP charged with communalising the issue

UPA should come out with status paper: Raja
Take up seamining issue with Sri Lanka: CPI

NEW DELHI: The Communist Party of India on Thursday charged the Bharatiya Janata Party with communalising the Sethusamudram issue, which was a developmental project.

Talking to journalists here, CPI national secretary and MP D. Raja did not spare the Congress also for failing to take a clear-cut stand on the project.

“The Congress should make it absolutely clear if it wants to go ahead with the project or not,” Mr. Raja demanded. Similarly, the United Progressive Alliance should also clarify its stand as both UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had visited Madurai to inaugurate the project.

“I demand that the UPA government bring forward a status paper on the Sethusamudram project, stating how much money has been spent so far and how much work has been done,” he said.

Criticising the government for its “vacillating” attitude on issues such as Sethusamudram, CPI leader and Lok Sabha member Gurudas Dasgupta said similar attitude was witnessed when the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena was stoking the fires of parochialism in Maharashtra.

“The Congress should take an uncompromising position on such issues. The Congress wants to have its cake and eat it too,” Mr. Dasgupta said.

Mr. Raja also wanted the UPA government to take up the issue of “seamining” with the Sri Lankan government as Indian fishermen could not venture into sea due to seamines laid by Sri Lanka in Palk Strait.

Serious issue

“This is a serious issue with international ramifications. Clearly, the Sri Lankan government has flouted all international conventions by putting the seamines. Our government has done nothing in the matter. Our fishermen cannot go out and fish, their rights are being violated. This is a volatile situation which demands urgent intervention by the government,” Mr. Raja pointed out.

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