Date:03/09/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/03/stories/2008090355190400.htm

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Orissa: Left to send another team

Special Correspondent

MPs’ delegation will visit violence-torn Kandhamal district: Karat

Promise of action: CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat inaugurating an LDF convention in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Left parties will send another delegation of MPs to the violence-hit areas of Orissa, Prakash Karat, general secretary, Communist Party of India (Marxist), said here on Tuesday.

Inaugurating a convention organised by the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF), he said the delegation would visit the violence-torn Kandhamal district as soon as the situation became conducive for it. He regretted the refusal of the Orissa administration to offer protection to the MPs’ team already sent to the State.

Mr. Karat accused the Centre of having failed to discharge its duties in the predominantly tribal parts of Orissa that had become the scene of Bajrang Dal-sponsored violence against Christian minorities. Most of these areas were reserved for the Scheduled Castes and came under the ambit of the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution and as such deserved to be protected by the Centre.

‘RSS campaign’

The CPI(M) leader said the violence was part of an orchestrated campaign by the RSS-Bajrang Dal combine to terrorise the minorities. There was a pattern to the violence as it was more or less in continuation with the violence witnessed in Gujarat, Rajasthan and other States ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The BJP and its feeder organisations were using power gained through democratic elections to indulge in attacks on minorities in gross violation of the Constitution.

He came down heavily on the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre, and pointed out that while it was clamping down on one type of terrorism and targeting organisations such as SIMI, it was not taking any action against the terrorist and extremist activities of the Sangh Parivar organisations.

In a secular democratic system, any such crackdown must be targeted at all forms of terrorism and extremism.

The convention was addressed by CPI State secretary Veliyam Bhargavan, Culture Minister M.A. Baby, Water Resources Minister N.K. Premachandran, Transport Minister Mons Joseph and several other LDF leaders.