Attacked for abuse, BJP fights back with bamboo- Censure CM, says party |
| Radhika Ramaseshan |
 Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti "The Opposition's demands smack of hypocrisy of the worst kind, of double standards," Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters. "What does it have to say of Mamata's remarks on Amit Shah? First, take Mamata's name. The BJP responds with contempt to the use of such double standard." Prasad's allusion was to the Bengal chief minister's crude references to the "bamboo" and accompanying gesticulations during a speech this week. His comments followed a joint statement against the Sadhvi this morning by Rajya Sabha members from the Congress, Trinamul, CPM, CPI, Samajwadi Party and some other Opposition groups. Niranjan Jyoti had made a derogatory remark against the minorities at a public event early this week. "The Prime Minister disapproved of the Sadhvi's statements, but what do Sonia and Rahul Gandhi have to say on Mamata?" Prasad asked. "From our party, the PM instantly responded when a small leader spoke. But what do the Gandhis have to say of a chief minister who utters things we cannot repeat? Will they ask for a censure motion against Mamata?" The Opposition statement (which the AIADMK, Biju Janata Dal and the Nationalist Congress Party did not sign) stressed that the signatories represented a "majority" in the Rajya Sabha. It said they had informed the House business advisory committee that they would propose a motion of censure against the Sadhvi for comments that were "not acceptable and deserved to be condemned". Prasad slammed the Opposition's attempts to leverage its majority in the upper House to corner the government, a strategy the Trinamul had evolved and urged the Congress and the others to adopt. "If pressure tactics are devised contingent to a situation that prevails in the Rajya Sabha, they have long-term implications," Prasad said. The Opposition statement said that when Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, he "did not meet the basic issue of removal of the concerned minister from the Union council of ministers or even censure her comments".  Mamata Banerjee The statement added that since the government had not accepted its "reasonable" proposal and "continued to remain obdurate and highly unreasonable", the Opposition had no option but to continue protesting against remarks that "run against the grain of our pluralistic ethos". It signed off with a renewed appeal to the government to adopt a common resolution condemning the "attempts to outrage our Constitution by making inflammatory speeches". The BJP asked why a censure or apology had not been mooted when Sonia dubbed Modi a " maut ka saudagar (merchant of death)" during the 2007 Gujarat election campaign or former Union minister Beni Prasad Verma called Modi a "butcher". A BJP source claimed that Modi had been "fair" to the Opposition by "volunteering" a statement in Parliament, asking the Sadhvi to apologise and himself regretting her comments. Modi had urged the House to accept the minister's apology. BJP sources said that quite a few party MPs had not wanted the Prime Minister to respond but he went ahead. |
| Saturday , December 6 , 2014 |
Drama shows Left hand does not know who Bengal Left fears more |
| Our Bureau |
 The flurry of nocturnal activities and a telling morning assignment of a CPM office-bearer brought to the fore the chasm between the priorities of the party's central leadership and the Bengal unit. At the core of the flux is a dilemma in choosing the main enemy: the BJP or Trinamul. The central leadership has little doubt that the BJP is public enemy No. 1. The Bengal unit also swears by anti-communalism in public but, in reality, everything else pales before the threat from Trinamul to the CPM's very existence in the state. The CPM had decided to join the protest by Opposition parties against the Centre's alleged bid to suppress dissenting voices in the Lok Sabha over the abusive minister. It was this decision that Bhattacharjee vetoed. Nothing illustrated the divide starker than the helplessness of the CPM office-bearer who was deployed near the Gandhi statue, the popular venue of protests, in the Parliament complex this morning. His mission: spot Left MPs who may have been unaware of Bhattacharjee's veto and the drama that unfolded while they were sleeping. The emissary from the CPM office in Delhi told reporters: "Please help me identify the MPs. I don't know all of them. I have been directed to ask them not to participate in the protest. The decision was taken late last night and we could not inform all the MPs about the late-night decision." Luckily for him, no Left MP turned up for the protest in which Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi was among the participants. Evidently, this time, word travelled faster than usual from Bengal to Delhi and the few other pockets where Left MPs still can be found. CPM sources said Bhattacharjee was so insistent - he himself drafted a statement that was sent to ABP Ananda - that his comrades used the social media till early this morning to spread the word that no joint programme with Trinamul would be allowed. Unwittingly, the successful communication drive also served to underscore the "communication gap" in the CPM. The night flurry was necessitated because many Left leaders from other states did not even remember the "rape-and-shoot" speech by Trinamul MP Tapas Paul when they expressed solidarity with the Trinamul drive against Niranjan Jyoti, the abusive Union minister whose deplorable conduct has not been much different from that of the Trinamul member. The language Mamata Banerjee uses is also nothing to be proud of. It is learnt that P. Karunakaran, the leader of the CPM in the Lok Sabha and a Kerala MP, had given his go-ahead to the joint protest without consulting the Bengal unit. Bhattacharjee realised the gravity of the situation when central committee member and MP Md Salim spoke to ABP Ananda. How close the CPM shave was became evident in the morning. Among the protesters near the Gandhi statue was Paul. Had not Bhattacharjee intervened and the Left MPs turned up as scheduled, they would have been photographed rubbing shoulders with a man who threatened to get CPM families raped and shot. Asked about the missing MPs, CPM's leader in the Rajya Sabha Sitaram Yechury sought to side-step. "The decision was taken at the level of the Lok Sabha, you should ask them." Inside Parliament, the Left MPs co-ordinated with "the wider Opposition" that included Trinamul and the Congress. The CPM signed a petition by nine Opposition parties, including Trinamul, in the Rajya Sabha, demanding a resolution against Jyoti. "Inside Parliament we are with the wider Opposition. But outside, we will not join any protest with Trinamul," CPM's Rajya Sabha MP Ritabrata Banerjee said. Party sources said that Salim had left Delhi for Bengal to attend a district level meeting after the rap from the former CM late last night. Before leaving, Salim told The Telegraph over phone: "Confusion was spread as the media wanted to highlight that I was diluting Paul's case and highlighting Niranjan's one. But that's not true. We were the first to demand Paul's resignation. However, I have talked to Buddhada and explained what happened." The issue appeared to revive another leadership battle with the Bengal section blaming Karat for the disaster that was averted by Bhattacharjee's intervention. "Karunakaran, being a leader from Kerala, has no understanding about the issues in Bengal. He was given the go ahead by Karat to participate in the protest. The general secretary should have consulted the Bengal leaders", said one Bengal CPM MP. Party leaders said that often the issues before the central leadership collides with the priorities of the state party leading to political disasters. At the moment, the central party is so worked up with the idea of Opposition unity to corner the Modi government that it has lost sight of the fact that the Trinamul Congress was the principal enemy of the party in Bengal. "Hundreds of our party leaders and cadres have been killed by the Trinamul goons. The Trinamul government wants to finish off our party and here in Delhi we show bonhomie with their party MPs", said an angry CPM leader. Party leaders said that it was a similar kind of obsession of the central party that had led them to pull out from the UPA I government over the Indo-US nuke deal and paved the way for unity between the Trinamul and the Congress. |
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