Red guns boom on Vizag beach

Published on 9/9/2007

VV Balakrishna

Visakhapatnam, Sept 8:A mighty Red river coursed its way towards the Bay of Bengal in Visakhapatnam today, The two jathas, led respectively by stalwarts AB Bardhan (CPI) and Prakash Karat (CPM) converged on the Ramakrishna Beach here. Where the two leaders assailed the UPA Government for its cosying up to the US, as witnessed by the nuclear deal deliberations and the ongoing wargames involving the navies of the US and those of its satellites.   They warned the UPA it would have to face the music if it went any further on the deal. Other leaders who addres sed the public meeting included Sitaram Yechury and BV Raghavulu (CPM) and S Sudhakar Reddy (CPI). Two other Left parties — the Forward Bloc and the RSP — were represented by Devabrata Biswas and Abani Roy respectively.   Addressing the rally, Karat said: The nuke deal is outside the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) and the UPA is straying from it. The CMP stood for independent foreign policy. The UPA would have itself to blame if there is political instability in future.   He issued a stern warning to the Congress that if the government did not abide by the decisions of the Joint Committee which is meeting on September 14, the Left parties would have to decide on their future course of action. Bardhan echoed similar concerns over the US bid to gain strategic control over India and undermine its sovereignty, and ridiculed the recent professions of friendship by the US as a sham. He dismissed as baseless the contention that the Left parties were creating political instability in the country, and recounted the role they had played in pressuring the Government into enacting the Right to Information and implementing the National Rural Employment Guarantee schemes.   For his part, Sitaram Yechury voiced the apprehension that if India tilted towards the US its enemy, Al-Qaeda, would target India. The US was just pursuing its self-interest in trying to sell one lakh crore worth of nuclear fuel to India and the nuclear power thus generated would prove prohibitively expensive, he averred.