Karunakaran dares Govt. to quit and face polls

By Our Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, JULY 16. The senior Congress(I) leader and MP, Mr. K. Karunakaran, has dared the CPI(M)-led Government to resign in view of the High Court finding of mala fide in allocation of Plus Two courses and face the electorate.

Addressing the annual meeting of the District Chumattu Thozhilali Congress (INTUC), here today, he said, "If the Left Front wins the next election, we are ready to apologise to them."

Mr. Karunakaran said the court had clearly said that there was corruption in the allotment of Plus Two courses. If the Government was not prepared to heed the court verdict and resign, let it not think that it could continue.

However, apparently disapproving of the violent turn that the Opposition's agitation on the Plus Two issue has taken, the senior leader hastened to add that violent means would not be adopted to bring down the Government.

Plus Two had become the most `profitable business' now, though it was not right to treat education as business. The Congress(I) had been saying right from the beginning that there was massive corruption in the allotment of Plus Two courses. Now the court verdict had proved that the party was right, he said.

"Mr. Nayanar claimed that we were levelling accusations to discredit the Government. He kept saying that Raja Harischandra's last son, Mr. P. J. Joseph, and all the others were innocent. Now that guilt is proved, what remains is punishment," he said.

Mr. Karunakaran said that after completing their SSLC, thousands of students had no place to go for studying further. Parents who had hoped to give their children a college education so that they could fend for themselves, did not know what to do. "What we have now is Minus Two and it is never going to lead to Plus Two", he quipped.

Paying a left-handed complement to the CPI(M), he said the construction of bridges and foundation-stone laying were flourishing under the People's Plan. The Government was running about to take loans to tide over the financial crisis. "The prices of all commodities except the price of human life has gone up under this Government."

Mr. Karunakaran said the leaders of a party such as the CPI(M), which was built up by the working class, were now fighting among themselves over the issue of giving recognition to the CITU. "This Government will not allow people to work and earn their living, because its leaders have earned their money through other means."

Earlier, inaugurating a symposium on the current relevance of Nehruvian mixed economy, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. A. K. Antony, said the left would soon be forced to accept Nehruvian economic policies as they had realised that the communist path was wrong.

The Congress(I) aimed at a new economic policy that would maintain the benefits of liberalisation while getting rid of its defects, he said. Though liberalisation had ended the `licence- quota raj,' the influx of multinational monopolists had ruined our industries. Mr. Varkala Kahar chaired the function.

The senior Congress(I) leader, Mr. K. Karunakaran, addressing the annual meeting of the District Chumattu Thozhilali Congress (INTUC), in the city on Sunday.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Southern States
Previous : VS blames Joseph
Next     : House to have tumultuous session