The Hindu : Fast a farce, says Pinarayi

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 25, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala-Thiruvananthapuram

Fast a farce, says Pinarayi

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM March 24. The CPI(M) State secretary, Pinarayi Vijayan, today asked the Chief Minister, A.K. Antony, whether he was ridiculing the people of the State with his `buffoonery'.

Referring to the Antony-led UDF fast staged here today, he said such a farce had never been enacted in Kerala before.

In a statement, he said this `Antony farce' had unfolded at a time when the U.S. invasion of Iraq had shaken the conscience of the entire world. The people of the Gulf region, including several lakhs of Keralites working there, were under the shadow of the war. Antony did not think it necessary to direct his fast against the American imperialism threatening the lives of the people of the Gulf region.

Mr. Vijayan said the Chief Minister could have done some good to the Keralites in the Gulf if he had approached the Centre before the outbreak of the war for the right kind of initiatives for their safety and rehabilitation.

``It was after the war had broken out that he thought it fit to send a three-member Cabinet team to the Centre. And the team could do nothing for the Keralites in the Gulf. Maybe, it is due to his guilt feeling that Mr. Antony remains silent on the issue,'' he said.

He said the Muthanga incident and the subsequent developments had fully brought out the anti-people character of the State Government's police policy. Even a senior politician like the former Minister, T. Sivadasa Menon, four MPs and an MLA were beaten up by the police. Till the Government ordered an independent inquiry into these acts of the police and punished the offenders, the LDF would continue its agitation in one form or the other.

Mr. Vijayan said the Muthanga incident had shocked the entire country. Civil groups and the entire intelligentsia had condemned the Antony Government for its brutality against the tribals. Mr. Antony had lost his right to continue as the Chief Minister in the light of the National Human Rights Commission's observations about the report he had sent to it.

``If his fast was atone for the wrongs he had done, it would have been extremely agreeable. But he is doing it to declare war against those who take up the cause of the landless tribals and those who oppose his tendency to crush the democratic rights of the people,'' he said.

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