By IANS
Agartala : Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), Sunday accused the Congress party of failing to tackle militancy in the northeast.
“The Congress-led UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government at the Centre imposed president’s rule in Nagaland on the plea that extremism was on the rise. But in Tripura the Congress entered into an electoral alliance with a tribal based party, which is an overgound organisation of a banned militant outfit,” Karat said while addressing an election rally of the ruling Left Front here.
Tripura will go to assembly polls Feb 23, followed by Meghalaya March 3 and Nagaland March 5.
The Marxist leader said that the Congress party’s wrong policies helped rebel outfits to boost their strength in Manipur, Assam and Nagaland.
“Since the tenure of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, the Congress has been using militants to oust the Left Front government in Tripura,” Karat said.
“Congress’ flawed policies and misrule led the party to lose elections in Punjab, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh and helped Bharatiya Janata Party to come to power in these states,” Karat said.
He said that the UPA government’s main failure was in tackling the agrarian crisis. He quoted government statistics and said that the depth of the failure could be gauged by the shocking figure of 150,000 suicides by farmers from 1997 to 2005 in the country.
According to the CPI-M leader, 16,000 farmers committed suicide across the country in 2006 alone, of which 6,000 were from Maharashtra.
“CPI-M led Left Democratic Front in Kerala constituted a commission and has taken a series of steps to check the suicides and the state government almost stopped these unfortunate incidents,” the Left leader added.
He felt that the CPI-M led Left Front would come to power in Tripura for the sixth time to maintain the developmental spirit of the state.
Tripura Chief Minster Manik Sarkar, other Left leaders of West Bengal and Tripura also spoke at the rally.