Joshi charges Basu with `opportunism' - Economic Times
Political Bureau
()
March 2, 1999
Title: Joshi charges Basu with `opportunism'
Author: Political Bureau
Publication: Economic Times
Date: March 2, 1999
NEW DELHI 1 MARCH
UNION HRD minister and senior BJP leader Murli
Manohar Joshi today launched a frontal attack
on West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu for
his renewed offer of support to the Congress
and charged the CPI(M) with `political
opportunism.'
Taking umbrage at Mr Basu's description of the
ruling coalition as ``barbaric and communal
government'' on Sunday - the Left leader had
in Calcutta used this to urge the Congress to
take the initiative against the regime and
even gone to the extent of declaring that,
given the Left's priority for the ouster of
the Vajpayee government, the Left would
welcome it if the Congress managed to rake in
a majority in a coming election - he charged
the CPI(M) with ``political myopia and
ideological paranoia.''
``I can well understand the communists'
frustration over the success of the BJP-led
government in providing political stability
and social harmony. But I am rather surprised
at the temerity of the veteran Marxist leader
to term the Vajpayee government barbaric and
uncivilised,'' Mr Joshi said in a statement
here today, contending that the `political
opportunism' of the Left was amply evident in
the Left's suspension of animosities against
the Congress. It was, he said, trying to prop
up a Congress government forgetting that this
was the party that imposed Emergency in 1975
and organised Sikh killings in 1984. The
CPI(M), he said, ``had no qualms about sucking
up to such a party whose involvement in the
violation of democratic and human rights is
matched only by their contemporary Marxist
regimes,'' and warned Third Front parties
against ``this Marxist chicanery.'' The Left's
duplicity vis a vis the Congress, the HRD
minister maintained, was all the more
``glaring'' since it came in the immediate
aftermath of its ``double-speak'' on the Dalit
killings in Bihar. ``On the one hand they were
in the forefront of opposing the entry of RJD
in the Third Front for its alleged misrule and
on the other opposing President's Rule in
Bihar in company of the Congress,'' he said.
``The CPI(M) still fashions itself as a
Stalinist party. They have condoned the
Stalinist brutalities, justified Pol Pot
barbarism and the Tiananmen Square massacre.''
Adding ballast, party vice-president JP Mathur
said: ``That Basu was speaking out of
limitless frustration is also evident from his
open confession that CPI(M) would support the
Congress in its bid to topple the BJP
government.
Contending that the defeat of the
``Congress-Communist conspiracy'' to topple
the Vajpayee government was evident in the
government's `victory' on the Bihar resolution
in the Lok Sabha, Mr Mathur stressed:
``Incidentally, it is revealing that both the
Congress and the Communists joined hands to
shield the Laloo Rabri government in Bihar, in
spite of the latter's utter failure to check
the series of truly barbaric killing of Dalits
and others in that state,'' he said, in a
clear attempt to debunk the anti BJP line-up's
claims of concern for the Dalits.
Indicating that the Centre would make optimum
use of its Lok Sabha win to offset the
opposition's contention that a defeat of the
resolution would divest the ruling regime of
its ``moral authority to rule'' Mr Mathur
said: ``We know that we do not have the
numbers in Rajya Sabha, yet knowing it we
brought it in the Lok Sabha so that it would
expose Congress. As far as Rajya Sabha is
concerned it is up to the government to take a
decision on the matter.''