The Hindu : Kerala News : Congress and BJP on a sticky wicket: Bardhan

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 11, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Kerala

Kerala

Congress and BJP on a sticky wicket: Bardhan

Special Correspondent

“Political alternative steadily building up”

A.B. Bardhan

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Communist Party of India, (CPI) general secretary, A.B. Bardhan, said here on Friday that both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were having sleepless nights seeing how a political alternative in which they had no place was building up in the country.

Addressing a Meet-the-Press programme organised by the Kesari Memorial Trust, Mr. Bardhan said the Congress and the BJP together would not win even 250 seats in this Lok Sabha elections. Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s attack against the Left parties during her election campaign in Kerala this week showed how “jittery” she had become, he said.

Mr. Bardhan said Ms. Gandhi knew the strength of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) in Kerala and the role the Left parties had played in the evolution of a strong non-Congress/non-BJP political alternative in the country. Referring to her criticism that the Left was moored in an “old mindset,” he said the expression would eminently fit her own party, which was still pursuing neo-liberal economic policies that had failed the world over.

‘Credit to the Left’

Mr. Bardhan said the credit must go to the Left parties if India remained less affected by the ongoing global economic crisis now. But for the Left opposition, the Congress-led government at the Centre would have aggressively gone ahead with the “Washington-prescribed” liberalisation policies.

He also accused the Congress of taking the country towards a “partnership” with the U.S. and even Israel, risking the country’s autonomous status in strategic areas.

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

Kerala