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Tamil Nadu
A.B. Bardhan, general secretary, Communist Party of India, addressing the inaugural session of the four-day State conference of the party which began in Pudukottai on Friday. — PUDUKOTTAI: Communist Party of India (CPI) general secretary A.B. Bardhan on Friday appealed to all secular parties to close ranks to prevent communal forces from coming to power again, “taking advantage of the dissatisfaction among the people against the omissions and commissions of the United Progressive Alliance government.” Delivering the inaugural address at the four-day party State conference here, he said, “Communal forces are combining together to pose a challenge. The Bharatiya Janata Party has a Prime Minister-in-waiting. He will remain waiting. Even in Tamil Nadu, AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa is moving closer to the BJP. Secular forces should unite to prevent communal forces and parties supporting them from coming to power in the States and Centre.” Accusing the communal forces and parties supporting them of trying to use faith as a means of gaining votes, Mr. Bardhan said the Sethusamudram project was sought to be stalled in the name of faith. “We agree faith should be respected, but oppose it being used for getting votes.” The project should be executed, whatever be the alignment, as it would benefit the country and Tamil Nadu. The Centre should not dither anymore on the matter. Referring to speculation on the possibility of the Lok Sabha elections being advanced to October/November this year, Mr. Bardhan said the CPI was ready to face elections whenever it was held. He urged party workers to strengthen the party in Tamil Nadu to repeat the spectacular victory in the last elections under the DMK-led alliance. Mr. Bardhan slammed the UPA government for continuing the policies of liberalisation and globalisation, which had only widened the rich-poor divide. “They speak of inclusive growth. But the country is witnessing tremendous poverty, hunger and rising unemployment on the one side, while a group of corporates and affluent people are accumulating wealth. Is this distributive justice?” The loan waiver for farmers announced in the Union Budget would only result in the closing down of rural banks and strengthen the hands of private money lenders over the next few years. The Finance Minister ignored the Left demands for setting up a Debt Relief Commission and reducing the interest rate on agriculture credit to 4 per cent. The government came nowhere near allocating six per cent of the GDP to the education sector and three per cent to the health sector, as laid down in the Common Minimum Programme. It conceded in its Economic Survey that the economic growth rate was just at 8.7 per cent against its prediction of a double digit growth. People should continue to fight against price rise and unemployment. State secretary D. Pandian presided. Senior party leaders Parvathi Krishnan, C.S.Subramaniam, R.Nallakannu, MLA S.Rajasekaran attended the inaugural session.
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