CPI(M)'s mindset on BJP 'patently undemocratic': Ravishankar Prasa

New Delhi, Jan 21 (UNI) Reacting strongly to the CPI(M) describing the BJP as 'enemy no 1', the saffron party today said it was the 'height of arrogance' of a party relegated to the margins by the people of the country and such a mindset of the Left was 'patently undemocratic, irrelevant and undesirable' for a healthy democracy.

Criticising the draft of CPI(M)'s 19th Party Congress statement, BJP spokesman Ravishankar Prasad said a party, whose influence was limited to West Bengal and Tripura and Kerala states, describing a major political force in such a manner showed that it had learnt nothing from history.

The BJP refuted the concept of dubbing its political opponents 'enemies' in the world's largest truly functioning democracy.

The CPI(M) and its Communist forefathers had used similar 'autocratic and stalinist expressions' against personalities like Mahatma Gandhi, Jai Prakash Narain also. While they termed Mr JP as 'rank fascist', they did not spare even Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose from their verbal assaults. A party whose influence was confined to three states and whose total vote share nowhere near the double digit was dubbing the major political force of the country as 'enemy', he said. ''They have showed their DNA of their mindset one more time", Mr Prasad added.

Reminding the Left that the six decades of Indian polity had increasingly become bipolar, Mr Prasad said the CPI(M) and its 'leftovers' had failed to recognise the reality. The BJP and the Congress have become two divergent poles of national politics and for the Left to crop up Third Front as solely to frustrate the growth of BJP and prevent it from coming to power.

He said CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat's political guru Harkishan Surjeet had propped up the 'disastrous regimes' of H D Deve Gowda and I K Gujral which could neither establish stable or viable political alternatives. Ultimately, the people chose Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the NDA which could provide a stable coalition lasting six-and-a-half years.

He said the CPI(M) which is the force behind the survival of four year UPA government enjoyed power without any responsibility was now seeking to distance itself from the administration as elections were now round the corners. It supported all anti-people's policies for the last four years and now they want to distance themselves from the failures. BJP considers this attitude of shrinking responsibility as 'political hypcrisy and deceit of worst kind', he said.

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