The Hindu : Sonia trains guns on BJP, Left

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 11, 2003

National

National

Sonia trains guns on BJP, Left

By Malabika Bhattacharya

The Congress chief, Sonia Gandhi, with her party leaders, Kamal Nath and Priyaranjan Dasmunshi, at a rally in Kolkata on Monday. — Photo: Sushanta Patronobish

KOLKATA FEB. 10. The Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, said today that the communists had paved the way for the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) to come to office at the Centre by joining hands with it a few years ago to resist the Congress.

Addressing a gathering at the city's Brigade Parade Ground, Ms. Gandhi said that 14 years ago the Communist Party of India (Marxist) leaders had shared the same dais with Atal Behari Vajpayee to resist Rajiv Gandhi. "They (the CPI-M leaders) announced from this place that the BJP was not an untouchable and that it would join hands with it to defeat the Congress.

Ms. Gandhi who had addressed a party rally in the Brigade in 1998, criticised the CPI (M) for being BJP-friendly in the past. "It (the CPI-M) cannot say it was not responsible for the BJP's coming to office.''

Accompanied by the AICC general secretary, Kamal Nath, Ms. Gandhi arrived here at 11.40 a.m. amid tight security. She was received by Barkat Ghani Khan Choudhury, Pranab Mukherjee, P.R.Das Munshi, all MPs, and Somen Mitra, former State party president.

In her brief speech, Ms Gandhi, however, did not utter a single critical word against the Trinamool supreme, Mamata Banerjee. She called on all like-minded Congressmen to come back to the party and unitedly fight against the "communal BJP'' and the Communists for their failure to provide a people-friendly government in the past 28 years.

According to observers, Ms. Gandhi today carefully projected an anti-BJP as well as anti-communist image, primarily to kick off the party's campaign for the coming panchayat elections in rural Bengal. Doing so, she also indicated to the Trinamool that her party was not exactly warm to the idea of a grand alliance of all Opposition parties, including the BJP, at the grass roots level in the panchayat polls to resist the communists.

Ms. Gandhi said the BJP was responsible for ruining the country's economic, social and cultural fabric. " The BJP has only one objective: to grab office and stay there by any means.''

The BJP had destroyed the economy by pursuing faulty policies as a result of which the gap between the rich and the poor was increasing day by day and a huge army of unemployed youth was created. "They (the BJP) are dividing the country along religious lines, crushing democratic movements and misguiding our children by distorting history.''

Ms. Gandhi charged the communists with forging unity with forces such as the BJP only to resist the Congress. "It was a case of blind anti-Congressism that led the communists to join hands with the BJP.''

The communists had been ruining Bengal just the way the BJP was doing it to the country. She referred to the State's "economic bankruptcy," lack of industrialisation and growing unemployment. She also charged them with unleashing terror as a result of which she said several hundred Congress supporters were getting killed. The communists, she said, had even failed to protect women.

`Maintain status quo'

UNI reports:

Ms. Gandhi demanded maintenance of ``full status quo'' on the controversial Ayodhya issue till the Supreme Court gave its final verdict.

Coming down heavily upon the BJP-led NDA Government for filing a petition in the apex court seeking permission to allow construction at the alleged undisputed site, Ms. Gandhi said since the entire issue was very sensitive and involved public sentiments, no decision should be taken in haste.

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