Left takes dig at BJP's ''back to basics'' agenda

New Delhi, Jun 2 (UNI) Scoffing at the BJP's "back to basics" agenda, the Left parties today said the saffron party always believed and practised divisive politics and never took up people's issues in and outside Parliament.

The Left parties said BJP's bringing back on its agenda the contentious demands for scrapping Article 370 and an Uniform Civil Code was not going to help it to stage a comeback at the Centre.

The Left urged the UPA government to take immediate steps to rein in soaring inflation, agrarian crisis and implement the pro-people provisions of the Common Minimum Programme.

The strong rebuff to the BJP came a day after it brought back to centre-stage the controversy over "pseudo-secularism" and its claim to be the frontrunner for the November Assembly elections and 2009 Lok Sabha polls.

CPI General Secretary A B Bardhan said, " they are going back to their old Hindutva slogan as they have no other issue concerning the people".

Mr Bardhan's second in command S Sudhakar Reddy observed that it is after its electoral victory in Karnataka that BJP thinks the Hindutva plank will help it further but it is not the case.

"The BJP should not forget that its very slogan of Hindutva did not yield any results in the 2004 parliamentary polls", Mr Reddy, CPI Deputy General Secretary, said adding that the Congress, however, should learn a proper lesson from its successive defeat.'' It should galvanise all the secular, progressive and democratic forces to join hands to defeat the saffron party".

CPI(M) senior leader Basudeb Acharia said the people of the country will now again see the real face of the BJP as the Assembly polls late this year and Lok Sabha polls next year are approaching.

''They kept aside these issues for some time but their real agenda is to promote Hindutva and establish a theocratic state".

Mr Acharia recalled how the BJP raised the Temple issue in 1991 for political purposes. " This time now again the danger is real as one after another the BJP will unfold its communal agenda." The CPI leaders reminded the UPA government of the growing people's discontent against its economic policies leading to record price hike of essential commodities and warned it against the BJP taking advantage of the resentment.

Mr Bardhan and Mr Reddy said still there is time to curb inflation and that it should give up its ''casual approach".

Forward Bloc national Secretary G Devrajan said they are not acknowledging the way the BJP is defining secularism. " it is the culture of our country, it was and remains so".

The BJP at its national executive meeting yesterday demanded the Prime Minister should issue directive prohibiting the use of word 'dharma-nirpeksh' (religion-neutral) on the plea that the Preamble of the Constitution gave the meaning of secular as 'panth-nirpeksh' (sect-neutral).

The Forward Bloc leader said the BJP's re-emphasis on Hindutva showed that it is very desperate to 'capture' the Centre to further its communal agenda. On the BJP's claim that it is frontrunner for the next Lok Sabha elections, he said it is a mere day dream.

The Left leaders expressed the hope and confidence that the people of the country would again reject the saffron party's Hindutva plank.

UNI KSA RP DS1442