By IANS,
Mumbai : Maharashtra’s Republican Left Democratic Front (RLDF) alliance finally broke its silence Friday and castigated the move by its ally, the Republican Party of India (RPI) chief Ramdas Athawale to throw his lot with the saffron combine of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena.
In a joint statement here, the now 10-party third front in the state politics termed Athawale’s move as “suicidal” and which could weaken the Dalit force in politics in the future.
The leaders of the 10 parties pointed out that when the RLDF was formed, they had decided specifically to keep away from both the ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) combine and the saffron parties.
“We had decided to keep away and oppose these two forces in the state and our stand remains unchanged even today,” one of the convenors of RLDF Sanjeev Sane said.
Sane claimed it was unfortunate Athawale was lured by the possibility of the saffron combine coming to power, though the social reality was that not a single neo-Buddhist legislator had been elected in the state in the past nearly two decades, thanks to the Sena-BJP.
“Athawale has forgotten these facts and has fallen into the trap of the Sena-BJP with the offer of some fruits of power,” he said, referring to the willingness by former Lok Sabha speaker Manohar Joshi to quit his Rajya Sabha seat in favour of Athawale.
Terming the move as “disastrous”, Sane said that in the past too, several other parties had adopted similar tactics vis-à-vis the Dalits, but the RLDF has vowed to continue its crusade for social justice and reformation by remaining an independent force in the state.
The statement has been jointly issued by the leaders of the RLDF constituents – Peasants and Workers Party, Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Samaj Party, Samajwadi Janaparishad, Janata Dal (S), Satyashodhak Community Party, Lok Sangharsh Morcha, Lok Rajniti Manch, Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).
After remaining with the Congress-NCP for nearly three decades, Athawale’s RPI joined the RLDF in 2010.
Athawale is expected to join the saffron combine in a formal alliance by October, long before the ensuing elections to several civic bodies in the state, including Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation in early 2012.