People's Democracy

CPI(M) Flays Vajpayee Govt Silence

Exposure Series Concludes

BY choosing not to respond to the CPI(M) campaign of exposures relating to ‘India Shining’ series claims, the Vajpayee government has confirmed the CPI(M)’s charge that the series was a propaganda exercise based on untruths and fraudulent claims, said CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury and Party leader in Rajya Sabha, Nilotpal Basu at a press conference in New Delhi on April 5.

The Party concluded its exposure campaign series, ‘Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics’ by releasing the fourteenth part, which showed how dismal the performance of industry has been under the Vajpayee government. “As in every other aspect, even in the industrial sector only the top 10 per cent have benefited under this regime”, said Yechury quoting figures of ‘growth rate of income and industries categorised by sizes.’ The figures released by the CPI(M) bring out starkly the pro-big business bias of the NDA government.

Sitaram Yechury while thanking the media for carrying the material released by the CPI(M) debunking the Vajpayee government’s fraudulent campaign, observed that the Party wanted serious debate on these issues. He wished the Vajpayee government should have responded to these facts but it chose to rake up issues irrelevant to the people’s needs – all with an intention of diverting the people’s attention away from these real issues. 

ON VAJPAYEE'S ROLE

The CPI(M) also castigated the RSS for its repeated campaign of misinformation and untruths relating to communists role in the freedom struggle. Releasing copies of the statement signed by Atal Behari Vajpayee on September 1, 1942 before a magistrate stating very clearly that he had not played any role in the action as part of Quit India movement for which he was charged. “This is incontrovertible judicial evidence showing how Vajpayee not only did not participate in the freedom struggle incident but falsely kept claiming the contrary, till some enterprising journalists brought the facts out”, said Yechury. He felt that while this was the actual picture, the RSS was constantly casting aspersions on the communists in order to justify its inglorious role in the freedom struggle.

Responding to questions, Yechury made it clear that any alternative secular government which would emerge after elections cannot ignore the Left and consequently the Left would wield influence over such government’s policies. He saw bright prospects for the CPI(M) to increase its electoral strength in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra apart from  improving on its performance in West Bengal and Kerala. On the TRS decision to field its candidates against CPI(M), Yechury criticised this saying the main issue in these elections in AP is to ensure defeat of TDP-BJP and any party bringing in other issues would only be helping the communal combine. He reiterated CPI(M)’s consistent stand in favour of maintaining linguistic states integrity.