Opinion Poverty and privilege

The CPI’s New Age says that “by staying overnight in a Dalit’s hut,he cannot claim to have declassed himself. Millions in the country are starving due to the politics pursued by the government of the party he belongs to. But Rahul has not uttered a single word on this issue.” Referring to Gandhi’s intervention at the recent AICC session,it says he spoke about two Indias without explaining which India he belongs to.

The CPI(ML)’s ML Update says that Rahul Gandhi’s pro-poor rhetoric cannot erase the evidence of the role of the Congress governments’ pro-rich,pro-corporate priorities and policies in deepening the chasm between the rich and the poor. “Peasants’ suicides,along with the spate of instances of corporate land grabbing,displacement of poor farmers and the deaths of protesting farmers in police firing,as well as Operation Green Hunt,are all episodes in the Congress-ruled UPA government’s war on poor India to protect the interests of privileged India,” it adds.

It wasn’t us

The RSS’s decision to hold street protests against attempts to link its functionaries with terror attacks is merely an attempt to pressurise the government and the investigation agencies from proceeding further,the CPM says. The lead editorial in its People’s Democracy says that with increasing evidence surfacing on the involvement of RSS-linked individuals in terror attacks,the outfit appears to have adopted the policy of offence as the best form of defence.

The editorial points out that the RSS had initially also disowned those arrested in connection with the Malegaon blasts,in typical fashion claiming that they might have drawn their inspiration from Sangh ideology but they were not active Sangh members. “This is nothing original. This is precisely what was said about Nathuram Godse following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. Godse’s brother,however,is on record in an interview to the media,saying that all the brothers in the family were members of the RSS,” it says.

“Terrorism has no religion. Terrorism of all varieties only feed and strengthen each other seeking to destroy the very unity and integrity of our country. Therefore,the current investigations must proceed unhindered in the interests of our country and action must be taken against individuals and organisations found guilty,” it says.

The sordid spectrum

An article titled ‘The CAG report: Raja has no clothes” in People’s Democracy says that the final report of the Comptroller and Auditor General has made it clear that the 2G spectrum scam was to the tune of Rs 1.76 lakh crore.

“It has also brought out some new issues that were not known before. Out of the 122 new licences awarded,85 were to parties who did not qualify as per DoT’s own criteria on eligibility. The other fact that has been brought out is that the issue of legality of awarding licences was referred to ministry of law by the ministry of communications and IT,who disagreed with the procedure proposed to be adopted,” it says. The department of telecommunications (DoT) still went ahead with their course of action,in violation of the transaction of business rules of the government,which demands that any difference between ministries be resolved at the cabinet level or though an empowered group of ministers,it notes.

“Are we then to take this scam as a lone operation of the telecom minister and the exigencies of coalition politics? Or is it true — as Raja himself has stated on numerous occasions — he has the support and the backing of the prime minister and his cabinet on whatever he has done? The prime minister and his cabinet must now come clean on this,” it says.

Compiled by Manoj C.G.