People's Democracy

Support For BJP Eroding Fast: Surjeet

B Prasant

 THE BJP was fast losing its ground in the country and its debacle in the Jammu & Kashmir polls showed the continuation of this trend, said CPI (M) general secretary, Harkishan Singh Surjeet. He also said that the Left-led movement countrywide against disinvestment and privatisation had sparked off a debate on the issue within the NDA.

Surjeet was speaking at a press conference at the end of the two-day meeting of the Polit Bureau in Kolkata, Polit Bureau members Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechury, and Biman Basu were present during the press meet.

Addressing the present international situation, the CPI (M) leader said that while US President, George W Bush, was trying his level best to mount a campaign against Iraq preliminary to invading it, there was a growing global trend towards opposing USA’s unilateral move from among the community of nations.  There were few takers of the Bush doctrine in Europe. Big demonstrations have continued to condemn the aggression in the making.  The forlorn support base of Bush in British premier Tony Blair has had to face a stiff challenge from within the Labour Party itself.

The BJP government, said Surjeet, “has continued to be defiant in toeing the US line in structuring the nation’s foreign policy.”  There has not been any condemnation of the threat on Iraq and the “hanging fire” of the Palestinian issue, too, has gone without protest.  The CPI (M) unequivocally denounces all US designs of aggression and all its aggressive postures.

Turning to the national scenario, Surjeet said that the results of the Kashmir polls showed that a “situation has been created for extending the base of democracy and for opening a dialogue with Pakistan”  “The sky,” commented Surjeet, “should be the limit, when one speaks about the ‘limits of autonomy’ for the people of Jammu & Kashmir.”

The J & K polls, said the CPI (M) general secretary, was a defeat for the designs of Pakistan to prevent polls from taking place.  The fact that the BJP got limited to winning but a single seat and the CPI (M) went ahead to claim two, were surely signs that a big success could be chalked up for secularism and democracy in Jammu & Kashmir, he said.

Responding to questions from the media representatives, Surjeet said that it had been the relentless pressure of the Left-led movements nationwide and the fact of the BJP witnessing its base getting eroded all over the country, that had prompted mavericks like Fernandes to go in for raising a ‘dissenting view’ on the issue of disinvestment.  “We welcome the controversy that is generating a kind of furore within the ranks of the NDA,” was how Surjeet would put it.