'Advani as Home Minister cleared Ram Setu Project'

New Delhi, Sep 23: Left parties today took the BJP to task for " misusing" the Ram Sethu issue to retrieve its lost political ground and pointed out that the Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project was the saffron party's own creation. The CPI( M), CPI and the Forward Bloc said the project was prepared by the Vajpayee government and order for its clearance was given by Mr L K Advani, the then Home Minister.
They denied that the Left and the DMK are the two major factors that have created a situation of uncertainty for the 40-month Manmohan Singh government.

The Left parties remark came a day after Mr Advani said the Left was strongly opposing the Indo-US nuclear deal while the DMK was trying to create ''unrest by making all-out efforts to demolish Ram Sethu,'' thereby compounding the situation for the Congress-led coalition.

On Mr Advani's attempts to revive the Ram Temple wave by way of the new found Ram Sethu issue, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member M K Pandhe said," Ironically the Sethusamudram Ship canal project was cleared when Mr Advani was the Home Minister." The Left parties denied that there are inherent contradications between the UPA and the Left, saying they had extended an outside support to the Congress-led coalition based on the Common Minimum Programme and wanted the Centre not to deviate from the CMP on economic and foreign policy matters.

Talking to UNI