The Hindu : 'Ravana on a chariot'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 14, 2003

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National

'Ravana on a chariot'

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD Jan. 13. "Ravan rathi, birath Raghuvira'' (Ravana on the chariot, Rama on foot), the CPI general secretary, A. B. Bardhan, said quoting "Ramcharitmanas" of Tulsidas at a press conference here today. Likening the Deputy Prime Minster, L. K. Advani's rath yatra of 1990 (when he was president of the BJP) to a chariot with Ravana on it, Mr. Bardhan said that it was indicative of his politics — of "attacking Ayodhya from a rath."

Taking umbrage at the comment of the senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Union Minister of State for Railways, Bandaru Dattatreya, that the communists were "copying" the BJP by taking out yatras, Mr. Bardhan listed many yatras which had been taken out by the CPI and related organsiations "long before the BJP leaders were even born.''

He ridiculed the "BJP patent'' on yatras and added that the CPI's proposed Bharat Yatra would not involve air-conditioned buses, nor would it spew communal venom. It would include "some vehicles,'' many cycles and even more people on foot.

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