National

BJP questions Left opposition to deal

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh has questioned the Left parties’ intention behind the opposition to the India-U.S. nuclear deal and wanted to know whether it was “inspired” by Chinese concerns or an echo of the BJP’s nationalist concerns about the strategic sovereignty.

Mr. Singh’s statement came in the context of the recent claim by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary, Prakash Karat, that the strategic alliance between India and the United States was a move to “counter-balance” and “encircle” China. “Such claims are the indications of a self-created illusionary mindset where the Communists appear to believe that China’s interests are being impacted. On the one hand, the Communists publicly express their concerns for China, but on the other, maintain a deafening silence on critical national issues such as continuing massacres and the saga of violence being propagated by the naxalites and Maoists across an increasing red corridor within the country, or the ruthless crushing of peasants who are fighting to protect their rights and honour in Nandigram,” Mr. Singh said.

The BJP president alleged that the so-called protectors of the masses, even after 30 years of textbook Marxist rule, which should had converted West Bengal into a “Marxist Paradise,” have converted it into a land of gross poverty and even unprecedented food riots.

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